Etiket telephone tap

Niyazi Dalyanci “In fact, our country is under the sway of fear to a large extent. Since its foundation, including the periods when it was run by the military, it did not witness a period of such fear. People coming to visit me are asking, ‘Is this place bugged?’” Suleyman Demirel who has left his mark in Turkish politics for more than 40 years serving both as president and prime minister said addressing a meeting of businessmen in Antalya, last week. The issue was tapping of telephones and other electronic communications between the citizens of Turkey. The problem reached scandal proportions with revelations that judges, prosecutors and even Turkey’s Supreme Court was being bugged. It all began in July 2005 when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan passed amendments to the laws governing the functioning of the police, intelligence services and the gendarmerie allowing them to tap telephone conversations without a court order. The same amendment also set up a unit called Telecommunications Directorate (TIB) that was given the task of overseeing the wire tapping both in telephone and internet connections. Since then, telephone conversations and internet mails intercepted by the authorities have been added to the political arsenal of the struggle between the government and the opposition in Turkey. However, the revelations last week that a number of judges and prosecutors, including those serving on Turkey’s Supreme Court have also fallen victim to official eavesdropping led the judicial circles ask the question whether Turkey is heading towards an atmosphere of fear even among the high judges so that they are put under pressure preventing them from functioning properly. Since the law was passed, media organs supporting the Erdogan government regularly printed the contents of telephone conversations leaked to them by unknown sources, between defendants […]