Call for 'objection to injustice' from Medyaradar website

The text, titled 'Call for a fight against lawlessness from Medyaradar', includes the website's reaction to the access ban imposed due to a report they published. 

The article includes the following statements regarding the process in question:

As the Medyaradar family, we want to speak about ourselves for the first time in our 18-year history and exercise our right to 'object to injustice'.

We do not have holding companies or giant corporations behind us…

We do not have foreign partners or sponsors who interfere in everything…

We are independent journalists who have dedicated ourselves to the fundamental principles and ethical values of the journalism profession, and who have devoted our lives to ensuring people exercise their right and freedom to receive information.

For exactly 18 years, we have drawn our strength from our accuracy and the ethical values of our profession.

Until today, we have delivered every piece of information that carries news value to you, without looking at whether our subjects are powerful or powerless.

We did not shy away from anything.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against us, mostly aimed at "intimidating and silencing" us; we have won 90 percent of them.

Of course, we have made mistakes from time to time over all these years; we have known how to apologize and correct the news or commentary we wrote.

However, we have never written news or commentary just to harm someone.

We have not used our profession as a tool for our personal feuds.

We have not thrown mud at anyone; we have avoided slander, insults, and profanity.

We have focused only on news and commentary containing information.

Now we are facing a great injustice that we do not deserve, and that is why, for the first time in our history, we felt the need to explain the unfairness and lawlessness we are experiencing.

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As you know; Medyaradar was blocked from access a week ago by the Turkuvaz Media Group, whose Executive Board is chaired by Serhat Albayrak, the brother of President Erdoğan's son-in-law Berat Albayrak.

The justification is quite interesting:

On June 23, 2024, a news report appeared on Medyaradar along with some other websites.

Was this news titled "Turkuvaz Media Group's YouTube channels hacked" true?

Yes…

Was it real?

Yes…

Despite this, a decision was made on June 27 to block access to the news. The Medyaradar management complied with the law and implemented this decision immediately.

More than a month later, on July 30, Turkuvaz Media lawyers applied to the court. They claimed that they could not reach anyone and could not get the access blocking decision implemented, even though the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of the Editor-in-Chief, News Center editor, and Legal Counsel were available in the site's masthead.

On these grounds, they requested a decision for the "complete shutdown of the site".

In other words, the lawyers made a request based on a false statement.

The legal scandal did not end there; the judge who was to make the decision did not even feel the need to check their computer to see if the link to the news was blocked from access or not.

They did not even have the news link that was the subject of the access block written into their unfair and unlawful decision.

*

Professional organizations, led by the TGC (Turkish Journalists Association), and media outlets reacted to the decision taken on July 30.

Following the decision, Medyaradar lawyers took action.

They applied to the higher court and the Access Providers Association, stating that the news report cited as the reason for the site's closure had been removed immediately, i.e., on June 27, that the closure of the site was unlawful, and that according to Article 7 mentioned in the judge's decision (If the content subject to the access block has been removed from publication, the judge's decision automatically becomes void), the site should be reopened for access.

However, the higher court, just like the court that made the decision, signed off on a new act of lawlessness and rejected the objection.

Now all eyes are on the Access Providers Association.

Will this lawlessness be stopped, or will a media organization that leans on the government be allowed to suffocate another media site; we will wait and see together.

*

As Medyaradar, we have never ignored any injustice to date.

Especially if the injustice in question is directed at our professional organizations and colleagues, we have put ourselves forward with all our existence.

Now, some are using their closeness to the government against us, perhaps without the government officials even knowing, and are trying to take away our right to publish.

Moreover, even though they have no legal justification.

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Our country is going through difficult days, dear friends.

The pressure on intellectuals and those who have something to say is increasing.

The whole country and even the world are talking about the access ban Turkey has imposed on Instagram.

Be sure that the unlawful closure of Medyaradar is also a major blow to the freedom of thought, expression, communication, and media in our country.

No matter what your views are, stand with us in our resistance against this decision that harms our democracy and our justice system…

Never doubt that what is done to us today will be done to you tomorrow.

Remember, this struggle is not just a struggle to reverse the decision to close Medyaradar.

This struggle is a struggle to "teach a lesson" to some insolent people who attach the power of the government to themselves.

This struggle is a struggle for justice, democracy, and freedom.

We want you to know that we will never give up and we will be reborn in some way with every new day…

Please continue to stand by us and give us strength with every new birth of ours, and help us make our voice, which is being tried to be stifled, heard even louder.