US secretary responds to jailed scribe’s letter

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist who had been held under arrest as a suspect in the OdaTV case for the past 16 months, was released from custody late June 18.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilliary Clinton has responded to a letter from Turkish journalist Müyesser Yıldız, who was convicted as part of the OdaTV case and later released.

Yıldız wrote to Clinton demanding information about a U.S. service provider address, from which two e-mails with viruses were detected to have been sent to her computer. The emails contained documents that were then used as evidence. In her response letter, Clinton said the ministry had no authority to access this information.

“We continue to follow the cases against journalists in Turkey, and we regularly urge the Turkish government to uphold the rule of law, respect media freedom, and comply with international human rights commitments,” Clinton’s letter read.

“The Department of State does not have the legal authority to obtain such information for you,” it continued.

In her request letter, Yıldız had said technical reports by both prestigious universities of Turkey and by an American information technology company revealed that those digital documents which are considered as evidence were loaded to the imprisoned journalists’ computers by viruses and those infected files were sent from an e-mail server in the U.S.”