Turkey: Reporter receives threatening message with photograph of assassinated journalist

Reporter receives threatening message with photograph of assassinated journalist Hrant Dink

(BIANET/IFEX) - Journalist Ozgut Topsakal, a reporter for the nation-wide "Evrensel" (Universal) newspaper, was threatened after having written an article for the daily.

Topsakal's article, entitled "A solution for the problem", was published on 29 July 2010. Subsequently, he received a threat via an e-mail message. The message also included a photograph of the body of Hrant Dink, the former editor-in-chief of the Armenian "Agos" newspaper, after he had been assassinated. "The Alperenci youth will certainly call you to account for calling a big leader a baby murderer. There is no hole in which to hide for traitors of the motherland in this country," the message said. The Alperenci youth have an ultra-nationalist tendency and are related to the nationalist Great Union Party (BBP).

Topsakal filed a criminal complaint at the Prosecutor's Office in Elbistan, a city in the Kahramanmaras province in southern Anatolia.

As reported by "Everensel", Topsakal said that he was searched twice by the police. "People claiming to be police officers called and asked me questions that are not related to the issue. They asked me for the ID number of the person who threatened me and for the names of the person's parents. I filed the criminal complaint to find out just that."

Source: IFEX