Police Leaves Nokta News Magazine

Weekly news magazine Nokta'se editor-in-chief Alper Görmüş said on Monday that the publishing policy of his magazine will not change despite the harassment by security forces and the judiciary following critical articles about the Turkish military.

Its offices had been raided by some 50 police officers last Friday, who left yesterday finishing their investigation on computers belonging to the magazine staff.

The editorial staff had to work in the presence of police officers for the new issue that will come out this Thursday. The police were acting on a warrant from the Bakırköy Prosecutor's Office to examine and duplicate every single document on the desktop and laptop computers in the building.

Görmüş said the police raid did not discourage them: "We will continue to expose secrets" he said.

He added that the magazine's lawyers will be taking the raid of the building to court, but he said the magazine staff's treatment by the security forces had not been bad.

He also expressed resentment toward the leaders of the major political parties for not even calling the magazine on the phone, but he said he was pleased with the media for being supportive of the newsweekly at the time of the raid.

The editor-in-chief added that the raid also involved violation of privacy of the editorial staff, as personal e-mails and other documents on the computers were also duplicated by the police, and noted that legal experts were saying they could take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, which would most probably result in heavy compensation being paid to them by Turkey.(EÜ)