Ankara urged to conduct full, impartial investigation
of Syrian journo’s murder
Published time: 28 Dec, 2015 22:27
Women hold pictures of film maker Naji Jerf, who was
killed on December 27, during his funeral in Gaziantep on December 28, 2015.
© Stringer / AFP
Media watchdogs, including a UN body, have urged
Turkey to conduct a swift and impartial probe into the murder of Naji Jerf, a
prominent Syrian journalist. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders expressed
doubt that Ankara will meet the demands.
“We strongly encourage the Turkish authorities to shed
light on the murder as soon as possible and to conduct a full and impartial
investigation,” Johann Bihr,
head of Reporters Without Borders (RWB) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia,
told RT.
However, he stressed that crimes against
representatives of the media are “rarely fully investigated” in
Turkey.
BREAKING: Syrian journalist who exposed ISIS Aleppo atrocities assassinated in Turkey on.rt.com/70hm
“Unfortunately, we have to note that impunities are
absolutely widespread [in Turkey] for cases of violence against journalists –
not only murders, but there are wide-spread attacks against journalists, for
example, by police officers,” Bihr
said.
The author of several anti-Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL) documentaries, Naji Jerf, was shot in the head in broad daylight in
the city of Gaziantep on Sunday.
He became the third Syrian journalist to be
assassinated in Turkey over the last three months after Ibrahim Abd al-Qader
and Fares Hamadi were found dead an apartment in the town of Urfa in October.
The attacks on the Syrians were claimed by IS
jihadists, who control large parts of land in Syria and Iraq.
“The situation is getting really dangerous. And we are
really concerned about the chilling effect such incidents might have on
colleagues; on all the other Syrian journalists and activists exiled in
Turkey,” the RWB
representative said.
“The situation is deteriorating because ISIL militants
somehow find it easy to cross the border in one sense or another,” he added.
Naji Jerf,journalist&dic of '#Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently'shot dead by unidentified gunmen in #Gaziantep
Bihr described the state of press freedom in Turkey as “appalling” and
called upon Ankara to “allow journalists from all across the political
spectrum to express themselves.”
The president of UN Correspondents Association,
Giampaolo Pioli, said that it’s Turkey’s “moral obligation in front of
the world” to find the killers of Jerf, editor-in-chief of the
independent monthly Hentah, as the attack happened on its territory.
He expressed confidence that the government in Ankara “will
do all they can to ensure the responsible to justice.”
“If this crime remains unsolved – especially, in the
country like Turkey that has also problems with internal press that’s sometimes
is jailed or attacked by the government – that’s going to be a serious issue
for freedom of the press in that particular state and around the world,” Pioli told RT.
The association’s head acknowledged that Turkey is now “practically,
not safe” for journalists, but added that “the world is
becoming less and less safe… there were 49 journalists murdered in 2015 and 69
were killed doing their job.”
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has also
issued a statement, demanding “the Turkish authorities to step up
measures to protect Syrian journalists and media workers based in Turkey.”
“It seems clear to us that Syrian journalists and
media workers who have fled to Turkey are not safe at all,” it said.
Ankara opening an investigation into Jerf’s death like
it did in previous cases is “not enough,” the EFJ stressed.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also
sounded the alarm over Syrian journalists, who have fled to Turkey, being“not
safe at all” in the country.
“We call on Turkish authorities to bring the killers
of Naji Jerf to justice swiftly and transparently, and to step up measures to
protect all Syrian journalists on Turkish soil,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ's Middle East and North
Africa program coordinator, said.
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Former member of the Turkish parliament, Dr. Aykan
Erdemir, told RT that more attacks on journalists are to be expected in the
country.
“It seems ISIL has developed quite an operational
capacity on Turkish soil; that ISIL assassins seem to be able to go in and out
of Turkey. And we can predict that similar atrocities will continue in the days
to come,”he said.
Erdemir cited a last’s year survey by Metropoll that
claimed “that 10 percent of the Turkish public do have sympathies for
ISIS, which means that it’s no longer just a phenomenon of foreign fighters,
but it’s beginning to also have some local supports.”
“From now on, not only the Syrian activists and
journalists, but also Turkish journalists will not feel safe,” he added.
As for the investigation of Jerf’s death, the former
MP noted that “no one has been apprehended or brought before the court of law”
in the killing of the two fellow Syrian journalists in October.
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