Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Atilla Kart asked PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan as to who had ordered the wiretapping of Taraf daily’s journalists. 

He noted that, based on the decisions by two Istanbul courts, Turkey’s National Intelligence Service (MIT) had wiretapped, from 30 October 2008 to 4 November 2009, the conversations of these journalists, including the daily’s Armenian coordinator Markar Esayan, Milliyet daily of Turkey reports.

Atilla Kurt recalled that the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office has petitioned to the PM with a request to launch an inquiry against the MIT agents, and he asked Erdogan: “Were these wiretappings conducted with the knowledge of the MIT Director? Why are you not conducting an administrative and a criminal procedure against such actions by MIT, which violates freedom of the press and the fundamental rights and liberties?” 

To note, when hearing they were wiretapped, Taraf’s journalists had filed lawsuits against MIT and the judges that sanctioned these wiretappings.