Censoring Mosul stories is unacceptable

One of the recent irritating tendencies is that the restrictions imposed on the freedom of the press through court orders have spread to grave extent, somehow adopting a systematic characteristic.

Critical incidents, such as the explosion in Reyhanlı, the Dec. 17, 2013 graft probe, the gendarmerie raids on National Intelligence Organization (MİT) trucks in Adana and Hatay and the release of the eavesdropping tapes of the Syria meeting in the Foreign Ministry, have led to court’s ruling broadcast bans each time. Bans on Twitter and YouTube are other reflections of the same mentality.

The latest example of these is the broadcast ban imposed on the incident where militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) raided our Mosul Consulate on June 11 and kidnapped staff and other citizens.

The Office of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor and Investigation Bureau for Crimes against the Constitutional Order launched an investigation the next day, and then demanded a broadcast ban from Ankara’s Third Criminal Court of Peace. The court rejected the demand on June 15.

The office of the chief prosecutor objected to this decision at Ankara’s Ninth Criminal Court. This court found the demand suitable on the same day and decided a “broadcast ban is applied in all kinds of print and visual media and in the internet.”

Within the framework of this ban, it is prohibited to broadcast, report or publish stories about the incident where ISIL kidnapped our citizens in Mosul.

There is an important detail in the decision. Apparently, the investigation is not only limited to securing the lives of the chief consular and other officers, but at the same time the probe is also conducted “because...