The Turkish Finance Ministry has imposed fines totalling 3.8 billion US dollars this year on the Dogan Media Group for tax irregularities. The group denies all charges. There are grounds to believe that the case might be politically motivated and aimed at silencing the Dogan media.

At the same time, dozens of journalists have been arrested and detained since 2007, in an ongoing investigation against the Ergenekon group, a clandestine crime network suspected of plotting to topple the government.

In the most recent development, Adem Yavuz Arslan, a television commentator and Ankara reporter for the Turkish daily Bugün, was arrested and detained for nine hours in October 2009 due to a story he wrote about military involvement in Ergenekon. His trial is still pending. Şamil Tayyar, a columnist for the Istanbul Star-Gazete, was sentenced in September 2009 to a suspended fifteen months prison sentence for violating the right to privacy of an Ergenekon suspect, journalist Güler Kömürcü. He was also sentenced to pay a fine on a libel charge for writing about a wiretapping record on two individuals involved in the Ergenekon case. Mustafa Balbay, the Ankara bureau chief of daily Cumhuriyet, and Nerima Aydin, columnist of online publication Toplumsal Haber were arrested for the second time in March 2009 on charges of "attempting to overthrow the Turkish government”. Balbay is still in detention awaiting trial. Prosecutors have so far launched 3,845 investigations against media and journalists on the grounds that their reports violated the “confidentiality” and “independence of judiciary” in a systematic effort to stifle the reporting on the case and suppress critical opinions.

WAN-IFRA Board calls on the Turkish authorities to cease the campaign of intimidation of journalists and media and to ensure that legal norms, including tax laws are applied fairly and transparently, not used as a tool to intimidate the press. It urges the Turkish government to firmly commit to the rule of law and to uphold international standards of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.