Mass media

Hundreds of lawmakers and journalists staged a '30-step march' in Istanbul on Dec. 26 to protest the arrest of daily Cumhuriyet journalists over a story on state-owned trucks purportedly carrying arms to militants in Syria on the 30th day of their arrest.

An Istanbul court rejected on Dec. 25 an appeal for the release of prominent journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, who were arrested on terrorism charges, marking the second time such an appeal was rejected.

Belgrade-based magazine Nedeljnik on Friday announced a lawsuit against the Anti-Corruption Council.

The reason are "the allegations made in the latest report of this government body" - namely, that the magazine charged Democratic Party (DS) leader Bojan Pajtic over RSD 400,000 for an interview.

Another court case has been opened by an Istanbul court against Sedat Ergin, Hürriyet's editor-in-chief, and Ekrem Dumanl?, Zaman's former editor-in-chief, accusing them of insulting the president in two separate stories on their newspapers' websites, while two other journalist, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief and Ankara office chief respectively, are to complete their fi

None of the journalists currently jailed in Turkey have been prosecuted due to charges related to their profession, Justice Minister Bekir Bozda? has said.

"Neither Russia nor anyone else in the world can instruct me - nor do they do that," Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has said.

Nikolic made this statement for Russia's Sputnik broadcaster, commenting on "speculation that Russia is obstructing Serbia's European integration though him."

'Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action' by Helen Margetts, Peter John, Scott Hale, & Taha Yasseri (Princeton University Press, $30, 304 pages)

The number of journalists jailed in Turkey has dramatically risen in 2015, according to a special report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). 

The report noted that 199 journalists were imprisoned worldwide in 2015, with China and Egypt ranking as the world's first and second worst jailers of journalists.

Members of the G-9 Journalists Platform have started a campaign to send letters to 32 journalists jailed in Turkey, including daily Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar and Ankara Bureau Chief Erdem Gül.

Seven window panels at the Do?an Media Center building in Ankara, which hosts the Ankara offices of daily Hürriyet and Hürriyet Daily News, broke at around 5 p.m. on Dec. 12.

The Ankara Governor's Office said in statement that the incident was not linked to a gun attack according to the inspections, as police officials had also said no ballistic traces were found.