HDP commemorates journalist Metin Göktepe

The HDP drew attention to the fact that the free press is still the target of the AKP-MHP government today in its commemoration of murdered journalist Metin Göktepe.

HDP Press and Propaganda Commission co-chairperson Tayip Temel commemorated journalist Metin Göktepe who was killed by the Turkish police in 1996.

"It has been 25 years since Evrensel Newspaper reporter Metin Göktepe was detained and murdered by the police in Ümraniye, Istanbul while following the news," Temel said.

Temel added: "Metin and dozens of journalists of our friends made journalism in this land, where a free press remains devoted to the principles and were slaughtered for exposing truths of the public. In Turkey hostility of the political power toward the free press has never ended.  For this reason Metin and the journalists have always been and continue to be the target of the governments."

Temel continued: "We are going through a period in which the pressure on journalists has increased. For the government all crimes committed inside and outside the borders, all corruption, all massacres are the facts that must be covered up and hidden from the people.

Free press martyrs who sacrificed their lives to bring the truth to the public, especially the martyrs of the press such as Apê Musa, Metin Göktepe, Gurbetelli Ersöz and Hrant Dink, are illuminating our way."