MEPs write to jailed cartoonist Musa Kart

At the proposal of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), members of the European Parliament have begun a campaign of support for imprisoned Turkish journalists. Green MEPs launched the campaign today by writing to Musa Kart, a cartoonist who has been held without trial for more than five months and is facing up to 29 years in prison.


Three of the European Parliament’s political groups have so far joined RSF’s proposal to send letters to journalists imprisoned in Turkey.


RSF is releasing (below) the text of the letter that members of the Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) sent to Kart today. It was signed by the group’s co-presidents, Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts, and by French MEP Eva Joly on behalf of all the other MEPs in the group.


Members of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE-NGL) will send letters in the coming weeks. Other groups contacted by RSF are also expected to follow suit.


In their letter, the Green MEPs say: “We are writing this letter to assure you of our solidarity, to remind you that you are not alone, to tell you that your sarcastic take on the news is cruelly lacking as we witness Turkey’s transformation into an authoritarian regime”


The letter ends: “Stay strong, Musa! Even thousands of kilometres away, even still unknown to you, we are at your side, committed to freedom, a free press and a democratic Turkey.”


Turkey is now the world’s biggest prison for journalists, with around 100 currently detained. Most of them were arrested under the state of emergency that was declared after an abortive coup attempt in July 2016 and most of them have not yet been tried.


Dozens of the journalists are subjected to a harsh form of solitary confinement in Section 9 of a high security prison in the Istanbul suburb of Silivri. On 31 March, an Istanbul court ordered the conditional release of 21 of them, but it was blocked at the last moment by an application from the prosecutor’s office and new charges.


In all, RSF has asked five of the European Parliament’s groups to write to five imprisoned Turkish journalists.


The other four are Nazlı Ilıcak and her colleague Şahin Alpay, who are both more than 70 and have been held since late July; Kadri Gürsel, a columnist who heads the International Press Institute’s Turkish committee and who, like Kart, was arrested in late October; and Ahmet Şık, an investigative journalist who, like Kart and Gürsel, worked for the independent daily Cumhuriyet. He was arrested in late December.


“Journalism is criminalized in Turkey today,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “An editorial policy critical of President Erdoğan suffices to be jailed on a terrorism charge and denied any effective recourse. We reiterate our demand for the immediate release of all journalists imprisoned in connection with their work and the repeal of decrees issued under the state of emergency that legalize arbitrary actions and trample on free speech.”


Turkey is ranked 151st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index. The already disturbing media situation in Turkey has become critical under the state of emergency declared in the wake of last July’s failed coup.


Around 150 media outlets have been liquidated by decree. At least 775 press cards and hundreds of journalists’ passports have been cancelled without any judicial proceedings. And censorship of the Internet and online social networks has reached unprecedented levels.


All these measures have drastically limited the democratic debate in the run-up to a referendum that will be crucial for Turkey’s future and is now just two weeks away.



Letter from Green MEPs to Musa Kart:


Dear Musa,


Stay strong. We are writing this letter to assure you of our solidarity, to remind you that you are not alone, to tell you that your sarcastic take on the news is cruelly lacking as we witness Turkey’s transformation into an authoritarian regime.


After your arrest last October, on entirely spurious grounds, you have been held in pretrial detention ever since, imprisoned in disgraceful and intolerable conditions.


For long months you have been cut off from the world and deprived of your freedom. And what was your crime? To want to practice your profession in a completely independent manner, to want to tell your fellow citizens the truth, and with humour. Being a cartoonist is not just a job for you, it is a real calling, a calling that earned you the media freedom prize from your colleagues in the association of Turkish journalists.


How terribly the media in Turkey have been treated for almost a year now!


Stay strong, Musa. Turkey, your fellow citizens, your readers, we all need you. Without you, without a free and independent press, citizens are no longer free and independent. You are the guardians of democracy, even more so in troubled times, and and we are grateful to you for that.


Stay strong, Musa!


Even thousands of kilometres away, even still unknown to you, we are at your side, committed to freedom, a free press and a democratic Turkey.


With our full support and sympathy,


Eva Joly, MEP

Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts, co-chairs of the Greens/EFA Group, on behalf of the group members

Published on
Updated on 04.05.2017