Turkey Pledges to Observe Human Rights Standards

«Pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors in Turkey are inves­ti­gat­ing severe crimes com­mit­ted by coup plot­ters. In this con­text, a num­ber of jour­nal­ists who are involved with FETO dur­ing or before the coup plot are also inves­ti­gat­ed. It is clear that the alleged acts attrib­uted to these peo­ple, if proven, can­not be con­sid­ered with­in jour­nal­is­tic work. Jour­nal­ists who use their pro­fes­sion in the ser­vice of ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions can­not be exempt­ed from crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions and con­se­quent mea­sures.

Sim­i­lar­ly, those pri­vate-run media out­lets, some of which have already been sub­ject to crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions before the coup attempt, are sanc­tioned due to mis­use by FETO exec­u­tives to achieve ille­gal goals of the orga­ni­za­tion, or for financ­ing of ter­ror­ism through sev­er­al activ­i­ties like false trans­ac­tions.

Let me under­line that, on July 15^th, inde­pen­dent media was among the pri­ma­ry tar­gets of the ter­ror­ists. How­ev­er, their attempt to con­trol the Turk­ish media did not last long and they faced a sol­id resis­tance espe­cial­ly from the pri­vate media organs. Under this crit­i­cal envi­ron­ment, free and plu­ral­is­tic Turk­ish media played a vital role in the pre­ven­tion of the coup attempt as a deter­rent force against the plot­ters.

Cur­rent­ly, the Turk­ish Gov­ern­ment is pro­ceed­ing with all mea­sures war­rant­ed by the cir­cum­stances in order to ensure that crim­i­nals are held account­able for their deeds. The state of emer­gency will help expe­dite these pro­ceed­ings. You may rest assured that jus­tice will be served in full obser­vance of all our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions and stan­dards.»