Joke of the year from the foreign minister

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said Die Welt reporter Deniz Yücel, who is currently in prison in Turkey, was charged with terror not because of journalism. "Just like in Germany, there is an independent judiciary in Turkey. This independent judiciary is conducting the investigation," he said. 

We all know how much of an independent judiciary there is in this country. Obviously they have hid the indictment against Yücel from the minister. If he actually reads the file, he will see that the charges were only over the stories written. 

Çavuşoğlu also said: "Lately, European secret services have started using journalists in Turkey as agents." I'm wondering whether "espionage" will be added to the charges against Yücel. 

What is interesting is of course why the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) is unaware of what the minister knows. If MİT knew the presence of "agent/journalists," they would have either deported them by now or jailed them. 

Accusing journalists of spying is one of the distinctive features of closed regimes.  From Iran and Saudi Arabia to Russia and China, in all closed regimes, disliked foreign journalists are accused like this. 

At a NATO summit in Brussels, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reportedly told German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who demanded the release of Yücel, that "I told her and reminded her, 'You have many more Denizes. I gave their files to you.'" 

Erdoğan must have been misled by some advisors, because in Germany there is no journalist who is arrested for of their stories and comments. 

If we listen to our administrators, all the arrested journalists are terrorists, but they have never carried a gun in their hands nor there is evidence that they have...