Turkish media comes under legal pressure

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and EROL ISRAFIL

ISTANBUL

These days, Busra Erdal wears two hats on her trips to Turkish courts. She writes for a newspaper, mainly about the trials of suspected coup plotters. And she defends herself — in about 60 cases that claim she broke confidentiality codes and other laws in her stories.

It’s a tale of modern Turkey, a democracy with authoritarian roots, and an Islamic-leaning government in a power struggle with secular elites linked to the military and judiciary. It’s about limits on expression in a nation seeking to join the European Union, and a combative culture in which media groups slide into the political fray, by design or default.

“Thoughts constantly circle in my head. What if I go to jail? Why am I doing this job?” Erdal, 29, said in a rapid but low-key tone during an interview in an Istanbul cafe.

Over the past year, there has been an upswing in cases filed by state prosecutors against Turkish media, many related to trials of alleged networks of hardline secularists, including police and military officers, suspected of conspiring against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The legal flurry comes amid tension between the government and the judicial establishment, both of which have sparred with their media critics, which in turn benefit from leaks by inside sources that possibly have a political agenda.

via Turkish media comes under legal pressure – BusinessWeek.