News colleagues rally around jailed Balbay

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

refid:11197679 ilişkili resim dosyası

Mustafa Balbay, daily Cumhuriyet's Ankara representative, was arrested Tuesday as part of the Ergenekon investigation. Balbay, who is known for strong anti-government views, was detained last year as part of the same investigation but later released pending the trial.

The "signing day" held yesterday at Cumhuriyet's Istanbul office attracted many of the country's top journalists, most of whom signed Balbay’s books as an act of support for Balbay and for freedom of expression in Turkey.

Cumhuriyet columnist Deniz Som, speaking to private channel CNNTürk, said such a meeting of journalists was a first in Turkish media history. "We are seeing that Balbay is still breaking down walls behind bars," he said.


Mehmet Barlas from the Sabah daily said he hoped Balbay woulod be found innocent as soon as possible. "I don’t want a country where people are jailed because of what they think," he said.

If the media put aside its political affiliations and cooperated, Turkey would progress toward a better future, said Barlas. Hürriyet’s Tufan Türenç, who is also known for his anti-government articles, said readers had to protect the media, too. "They [readers] are constantly supporting us but cooperation within the media should also spread to the readers," he said.

Milliyet’s Derya Sazak said they were present at Cumhuriyet’s Istanbul office as an act of solidarity for Balbay. "The preliminary stages of the investigation, before the start of the trial, were very long. I hope this fact doesn’t create more victims," he said. Balbay was detained earlier this month for links to the alleged Ergenekon gang.

The Ergenekon case started after the discovery of 27 hand grenades on June 12, 2007 in a shanty house in Istanbul's Ümraniye district that belonged to a retired noncommissioned officer. The grenades were found to be the same as those used in the attacks on Cumhuriyet daily’s Istanbul offices in 2006. The findings led to scores of detentions, putting more than 100 journalists, writers, gang leaders and politicians under interrogation in what turned into a terror investigation that seeks to crack down on an alleged ultra-nationalist gang named Ergenekon, which sought to topple the government by staging a coup in 2009 by initially spreading chaos and mayhem. Ergenekon is originally a pre-Islamic Turkish saga that tells of Turks' re-emergence from defeat by trickery of their enemies under the guidance of a gray wolf. The unity among journalists also was echoed internationally, with Journalists Without Borders condemning Balbay’s arrest and demanding his release. In a written statement, the press group said there was no proof that Balbay was guilty of any crime.