The Right Honourable Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Prime Minister of Turkey
Ankara, Turkey

10 December 2008

Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the European Newspaper Publishers Association to express our serious concern at the cancellation of the accreditation of six journalists covering the Prime Minister’s activities.

On 11 November, Sultan Özer, diplomacy reporter for the daily Günlük Evrensel, Hasan Tüfekçi and Turan Yilmaz of the daily Hürriyet, Abdullah Karakus of the daily Milliyet, Fatma Çözen of Star TV and Ali Ekber Ertürk of the daily Aksam had their accreditation to cover your activities cancelled. Although the Prime Minister’s Press Office claimed that the reason for this sanction was the journalists’ absenteeism, you stated: "If journalists write false reports, their accreditations may be cancelled. That particular media institution or group should send another reporter. We will not go on with those who publish false reports. This is our criteria. He or she will not write false reports."

We are seriously concerned that the real reason for the withdrawal of accreditation was that the six journalists asked difficult questions and reported critically on your activities. We respectfully remind you that the process of accrediting journalists should be transparent, not arbitrary, and that banning reporters in these circumstances is tantamount to censorship. Governments that respect freedom of expression cannot dictate to news organisations who should be assigned to report on their activities; the choice must be the organisation’s alone to ensure editorial independence.

We respectfully call on you to immediately reinstate the accreditation of these six journalists and to ensure that in future the process of accreditation is fully transparent and fairly implemented. We urge you to ensure that in future your country fully respects international standards of freedom of expression.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O’Reilly
President
World Association of Newspapers

Valdo Lehari Jr.
President
European Newspaper Publishers Association

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) is the global organization for the newspaper industry, with formal representative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The organization groups 18,000 newspapers in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 11 regional and world-wide press groups. WAN is non-governmental and non-profit.

The European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA) is the main advocate of the European newspaper publishing industry with members from 25 European countries. ENPA represents the interests of the European publishers at different international organisations and institutions. ENPA represents over 5,200 national, regional and local newspaper titles.