The Turkish government played a role in helping free the Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad from prison in Libya, it has been disclosed.

Abdul-Ahad had been detained by the Libyan authorities for a fortnight after being picked up from the coastal town of Sabratha on 2 March, along with a Brazilian correspondent.

He was freed on Wednesday after the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, flew to Tripoli to help organise his release.

Rusbridger revealed on Thursday that the Turkish government, which is handling UK interests in Libya after the closure of the British embassy, had been actively involved in the negotiations to free Abdul-Ahad. It is believed the prime minister and president’s offices were involved in behind-the-scenes talks since the weekend, along with the foreign ministry. 

Source: The Guardian

Read More »Turkey Helps Free Guardian Journalist In Libya

Daily Taraf has become the first Turkish partner of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, joining internationally known publications in signing a contract to publish the site’s leaked documents firsthand.

The Turkish daily was picked by WikiLeaks because it is “the bravest newspaper in Turkey,” as described by the site’s founder, Julian Assange.

Taraf will begin publishing Thursday the 11,000 documents it has received regarding Turkey from the era between 2000 and 2010.

According to chief editor Ahmet Altan’s column Wednesday, the documents feature content regarding religious leader Fethullah Gülen, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, the alleged Ergenekon gang, the alleged coup plot codenamed “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer), the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and many other secrets.

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

Read More »Turkish newspaper Taraf signs contract with WikiLeaks

Interview with the “Chaskor” editor Ivan Zassoursky took place in Aghveran city, Armenia, where he, as an expert, conducted the new media workshop for Armenian journalists. The interview touched changes related to transformations of the traditional media.

Question: You are famous as a reporter, blogger and an expert in the new media. How will you present yourself?

Answer: Just a journalist.

Q: Anyway, do you deal with blogging?

A: The thing that I comment or post on Facebook, doesn’t at all mean that I am a blogger. Today everybody is on Facebook. I have a blog on Lifejournal, but I use it rather for the posters of my newspaper articles. 

Q: What is the journalist’s role in the free new media environment?

Read More »Media Maestro: Editor of “Chaskor” as an Exclusive Specialist

The Russian-speaking TV channel PIK (Первый информационный кавказский) broadcasted from Tbilisi is interested in cooperation with TV producers, directors and journalists from Armenia. During the presentation of the channel and pik.tv web-site in Yerevan, the director of the channel Robert Parsons said that the broadcasting aims to introduce the Caucasus to the foreign audience, and to fill the information gap about neighboring countries in the region itself.

The head office of the channel is in Tbilisi, but “it is not a Georgian television, though we broadcast from Georgia. Our channel is Caucasian,” assures Parsons.

The Caucasian channel has its own correspondent in Armenia, and there are several representatives of Armenian Diaspora in Georgia working at the channel.

PIK is the successor of the “First Caucasian Channel”. PIK started broadcasting at the end of January 2011. By the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Georgian Public Broadcaster, in July 2010 the channel managemet was handed to “K-1” Ltd., founders of which are Robert Parsons (former BBC correspondent) and Yekatirina Kotrikadze.

Read More »PIK in Armenia. New TV Channel Intends to Fill the Information Gap in Caucasus

On March 15 journalist Nino Kakhishvili of the online edition Netgazeti was restricted to film the first lady of Georgia Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs having conducted a lesson for primary class pupils at Tbilisi Public School №1on the healthy way of life. Moreover, Netgazeti reports, an unidentified person deleted the part of the footage featuring the interview with Sandra Roelofs journalist Nino Kakhishvili managed to obtain earlier.

“Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs started reporting to media on the importance of healthy school. Along with the rest of the TV cameras Netgazeti too filmed the interview with the first lady of Georgia but in a short while several unidentified persons first restricted us to close up Sandra Roelofs and then filming,” said Nino Kakhishvili reporting on Netgazeti.

The first lady’s attendants clarified the reason for the restriction, the invitation list for the event, they said, included televisions only. But the Ministry of Education and Science provided Netgazeti with the announcement on the evening of March 14, writes the journalist.

Nino Kakhishvili was denied entry to the classroom Sandra Roelofs was giving a lesson in. Neither the visit of Catholicos Patriarch of all Georgia Ilia II to discuss the healthy way of life was of any help.

Read More »Netgazeti Journalist Restricted to Film First Lady of Georgia

A group of journalists and film-makers working for Finnish television was held up at Yerevan airport and denied entry into Armenia on Friday for reasons that the Armenian authorities refused to publicize.

Andrius Brokas, an executive producer at Finland’s YLE public television and radio network, said immigration officials at the Zvartnots international airport refused to issue visas to the four-member TV crew without any explanation.

Read More »RFE/RL: Finnish TV Team Barred From Entering Armenia

Thousands of Turkish journalists took to the streets here on Sunday demanding the release of colleagues in prison and raising the issue of press freedom.

Journalists supported by activists, intellectuals, and some opposition parties marched in central Istanbul.

Some carried banners that read “Freedom to journalists”, “No to wire tappings,” and “Justice right now,” an AFP photographer reported.

The photographs of arrested colleagues and murdered journalists were carried along side newspapers with headlines on press freedom.

The European Parliament in a resolution on March 9 also criticized Turkey for deteriorating freedom of the press.

Source: http://www.google.com/

Read More »Turkish Journalists Protest Over Arrested Colleagues

On Mar. 10, an international group of journalists and film producers heading to Armenia for an international documentary project was stopped at Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport by Armenian border security guards with no explanations. Later, all members of the group were denied entry visas to Armenia. The group was comprised of Finnish, Lithuanian and Estonian filmmakers working on a documentary film project called “Souls of the Ghost Town” on the difficult path of conflict resolution in the war-affected Caucuses, according to a release issued by the project’s executive co-producer, PC “TV Komanda” producer Andrius Brokas, and disseminated by the Lithuanian Journalists’ Union.

In Armenia the filmmaking consortium was to conduct face-to-face interviews with officials as well as peace-makers under the general theme of “Armenia: Past, Present and Future” dispatched by “YLE,” the national Finnish broadcasting company. The production is part of a larger documentary project which includes independent research of the Khojaly mass killings. The project was intended to present a balanced approach through the eyes of witnesses and people involved in the conflict on both sides, as well as independent international observers.

Read More »ePress. Four EU Filmmakers, Journalists Locked in Yerevan Airport

Azerbaijan has arrested five young democracy activists for trying to organise a nationwide day of protest in the ex-Soviet state through the Facebook social network, the opposition said yesterday.

The “Great People’s Day in Azerbaijan,” called for tomorrow, is an attempt by activists in the tightly controlled Muslim-majority country to latch on to the mood of revolt sweeping through the Arab world.

However the authorities have made clear they will not tolerate even small-scale unsanctioned protests and have arrested leading activists on what the opposition claims are spurious charges.

“A campaign of young activists’ arrests is under way. The authorities are using illegal methods to suppress the opposition,” Isa Gambar, the leader of the opposition Musavat party, said.

He said five young activists, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, Sakhavat Soltanli, Jabar Savalan, Dayanat Babaev, and Rasadat Akhundov, have been arrested so far, under “ridiculous accusations of hooliganism,” such as speaking loudly on the telephone in a public place.

Hajiyev, who was sentenced on March 4 for one month in prison, has already been arrested twice in recent months. Babayev, an activist from the opposition National Front party, was arrested on Monday, followed by the arrest of his fellow Soltanli and independent activist Akhundov on Tuesday.

Read More »Democracy Activists Held In Azerbaijan

The family of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, assassinated in 2007, has given its support to two prominent journalists who were arrested at the weekend in connection with an alleged coup plot.

The arrests of Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık has sparked widespread anger among press circles and nongovernmental associations. Journalists protested their colleagues’ arrests Sunday in front of the courthouse in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district, joined by Dink’s brother Khosrov Orhan Dink, who waited with the rest of the group until the first morning light to learn the court’s decision and offer his support to Şener and Şık.

Dink’s wife, Rakel Dink, also visited Şener’s wife in order to give her support.

Şener previously faced trial for a book he wrote about the Dink murder case, in which he was accused of “making targets of civil servants,” “obtaining secret documents” and “exposing secret documents.” He was acquitted on all charges in June 2010.

In his column in daily Posta on Feb. 25, Şener wrote that there were threats made against him after it was revealed that police accused of negligence in Dink’s murder were also involved in the Ergenekon inquiry.

Turkish journalists’ organizations on March 6 visited the homes of two reporters to show their support for their colleagues’ families and protest their arrests in an alleged coup plot.

Read More »Dink Family Supports Journalists Arrested In Turkey