Mr. Ronan Brady:

I join my colleagues in thanking members of the joint committee for the concern they have shown regarding this issue. It is very dear to us and we are grateful for their interest.

There have been suggestions by those connected with the Turkish Government that the International Federation of Journalists is picking unfairly on Turkey. The IFJ approach to Turkey, supported by the National Union of Journalists, of which we are a part, is consistent with our approach to global attacks on media freedom. In the past week, the IFJ raised similar issues to those we have raised with Ankara. For example, our organisation protested against the nakedly repressive media policies of the Orbán government in Hungary, involving the closure of an opposition newspaper, and protested against a foreign travel ban imposed by the Malaysian Government on Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, a notable political cartoonist to whom I apologise for mispronouncing his name. The organisation also presented our proposed declaration on media freedom in the Arab world to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein. This was in defence of the principles infringed by governments such as that of President Erdoan. This is part of the wider work of the organisation. Last week also saw our Brussels office defending public broadcasting in Romania, trade union rights in Tunisia and fighting for journalists on many other fronts.

The IFJ mission statement includes the following principles:

The IFJ promotes international action to defend press freedom and social justice through strong, free and independent trade unions of journalists. The IFJ does not subscribe to any given political viewpoint, but promotes human rights, democracy and pluralism. The IFJ is opposed to discrimination of all kinds and condemns the use of media as propaganda or to promote intolerance and conflict. The IFJ believes in freedom of political and cultural expression and defends trade union and other basic human rights.

The IFJ does not have anything against Turkey. On the contrary, we have the greatest possible admiration for Turkish culture, in particular, Turkish journalism. We are here in solidarity with the Turkish people, as well as Turkish journalists.