European Parliament President bans distribution of Daily Sabah at parliament

BRUSSELS

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The president of the European Parliament has banned the distribution of Turkish pro-government English language Daily Sabah at parliament, upon the request of a Dutch MEP, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on March 23.

President Antonia Tajani ruled for the ban on the daily under the roof of the parliament in Brussels following an “investigation” after a demand from Jeroen Lenaers, a member of the European Parliament from the Christian Democratic Appeal Party.

Marjory van den Broeke, the director of the European Parliament’s Press Department, confirmed the ban.

Without elaborating on the main motive, she stated that the demand originated from some members of the parliament “who had been disturbed by the publishing line of the paper.”

Founded in 2014, Daily Sabah had been distributed at the European Parliament only on Tuesdays.

Lenaers had demanded the distribution ban on Daily Sabah in a letter penned to President Tajani last week.

The letter came after the newspaper published a headline reading “EU acts as if Dutch attack on democratic rights never happened,” over the barring of two Turkish ministers from entering the Netherlands for the April 16 referendum campaign.

The Dutch politician also stated that the daily “spread hate” with its reporting on sympathizers in the Netherlands of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, accused of masterminding Turkey’s failed July 2016 coup attempt.

Lenaers’ demand had drawn an angry reaction from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said those who did not allow Daily Sabah’s distribution at the European Parliament would “face the consequences.”

“There are people who do not want to let Daily Sabah into the European Parliament. They are issuing motions for that. All this will bring a reprisal. If they do not let a national and native newspaper in there, you will see reprisals in Turkey,” Erdoğan said at a rally in Istanbul on March 19.