Taraf daily to sue PM Erdoğan over treason accusations


Date posted: December 8, 2013

Daily Taraf has announced that it will file a criminal complaint against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on charges of attempting to influence due process after the Turkish leader called on the “judiciary to do its duty” against the newspaper for exposing a plan to eliminate the Gülen movement.

Taraf said Erdoğan had filed a criminal complaint against the daily’s Mehmet Baransu for leaking secret state documents but then went further by saying “the judiciary must do its duty” during a meeting.

A lawyer for the daily, Veysel Ok, will file the criminal complaint this week, the daily said today.

“Erdoğan’s words mean ordering prosecutor and judges what to do, and it’s a damage to the judiciary. These are crimes under the Turkish Criminal Code’s 228th Article,” Ok was quoted as saying by Taraf.

Erdoğan slammed Taraf last week for revealing a document from a 2004 National Security Council (MGK) meeting, accusing Baransu of “treason.”

“Revealing state privacy is not called freedom, it is sheer treason,” Erdoğan said, addressing a crowd in the northwestern province of Tekirdağ during a mass opening ceremony on Dec. 7.

The statement comes a day after prosecutors launched investigations Baransu and Taraf. Separate criminal complaints were filed by the Prime Ministry, the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the National Security Council (MGK).

The document, published by the newspaper on Nov. 28, revealed that the government had adopted an action plan against Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s movement during the MGK meeting. Its publishing further heated a row between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Hizmet (Service) movement, which erupted after a reform to close test prep schools was announced. Many of the schools are run by members of the Hizmet movement.

In a subsequent report, also based on documents leaked by Baransu, Taraf claimed that the Turkish government had profiled a number of groups based on religion and faith through the MİT, many of them affiliated with the Gülen movement, and monitored their activities until 2013.

On Dec. 7, Baransu said via Twitter that he found a hidden camera and a receiver in his apartment. “My source who told me that intelligence officers were following me warned me of this,” he said.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News , December 8, 2013

Tags: | | | |


Related News

Fethullah Gülen: An Islamic sign of hope for an inclusive Europe

Thus Gülen and the initiatives inspired by his teaching challenge the tendency found among some Muslims groups to separatist withdrawal from the wider non-Muslim society. By contrast, they offer a basis for Muslim engagement with the wider society based upon a confident and richly textured Islamic vision.

Imprisoned Gülen followers subject to rape, nail extraction, object insertion: lawyers association

People imprisoned as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement are being systematically tortured in the most barbaric ways including rape, removal of nails and the insertion of objects into their anuses, according to the president of a leading lawyers association.

Prep school owners write to Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court will review a law that seeks to shut down preparatory schools that assist students in studying for the national high school and university admission exams after organizations representing private prep schools wrote to the court, asking to make statements about the problems that might arise due to the closure of these institutions.

Woman says husband abducted after losing job in post-coup crackdown

A recently established Twitter account claims in a series of tweets that Turgut Çapan was abducted in Turkey’s capital of Ankara. While the reason for the alleged abduction is yet to be known, earlier tips submitted to Turkey Purge as well as a number of other media articles reported on several mysterious incidents of abduction involving Gülen followers.

National Development Requires Peaceful Co-existence

Organized by the Ghana-Turkey Co-operation and Development Association (TUDEC), the Great Volta Foundation Dialogue Centre and the Fountain Magazine, in collaboration with the National Peace Council. The conference stressed that peaceful co-existence is possible only when people learn to accept, embrace and respect one another in spite of their religious and racial differences.

Gülen extends condolences to coal mine victims

Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has extended condolences for victims of the coal mine blast in western Turkish town of Soma, wishing speedy recovery for injured workers.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

Zaman launches satirical magazine, defying pressure with humor

Tajik president urges Turkish firms to make mining investments

Australian NGOs support Gülen against PM Erdoğan’s insults

66 U.S. senators sign letter asking Turkey to release Pastor Andrew Brunson

‘When the last gang becomes a thing of the past’

Foreign journalists baffled by gov’t decision to shut down prep schools

Professor Sarıtoprak: ‘ISIS uses eschatological themes extensively for their ideology’

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News