Ahmet Tuncay Özkan (born 14 August 1966) is a Turkish journalist, writer and politician. He was arrested on September 27, 2008, in relation to the odatv case of the

Ergenekon trials The Ergenekon trials were a series of high-profile trials which took place on 2008–2016 in Turkey in which 275 people, including military officers, journalists and opposition lawmakers, all alleged members of Ergenekon, a suspected secularist ...

, and in August 2013 he was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment.

Career

Tuncay Özkan began his career in journalism in 1981 as a local reporter in Ankara. Three years later, he was hired by ''Hürün'' newspaper published by the group ''

Hürriyet ''Hürriyet'' (, ''Liberty'') is one of the major Turkish newspapers, founded in 1948. , it had the highest circulation of any newspaper in Turkey at around 319,000. ''Hürriyet'' has a mainstream, liberal and conservative outlook. ''Hürriyet ...

''. From 1988 to 1993, Tuncay Özkan worked for the

Kemalist Kemalism ( tr, Kemalizm, also archaically ''Kamâlizm''), also known as Atatürkism ( tr, Atatürkçülük, Atatürkçü düşünce), or The Six Arrows ( tr, Altı Ok), is the founding official ideology of the Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurche ...

daily ''

Cumhuriyet ''Cumhuriyet'' (; English: " Republic") is the oldest up-market Turkish daily newspaper. It has been described as "the most important independent public interest newspaper in contemporary Turkey". The newspaper was awarded the ''Freedom of Pres ...

'' and then moved to the popular private television channel called ''

Show TV Show TV is a nationwide television channel in Turkey owned by Albayrak Holding since 2018, acquired from Sadık Albayrak which in turn seized from Ciner Media Group after Turgay Ciner was forced to sell due to tax debts. The channel replaces Cine ...

'' to work as a correspondent in Ankara for their political show ''Arena''. In 1995, he started with another private channel ''

Kanal D Kanal D, also known as Channel D, is a nationwide television channel in Turkey and part of Demirören Group. It was founded by Ayhan Şahenk and Aydın Doğan in 1993. The network also runs an international channel, Euro D which is available o ...

'' where he worked as the general news manager (1996-2002). In June 2002, he went back to ''Show TV'' to work as general news manager. In June 2002, he was appointed as the CEO of ''

Çukurova Media Group Çukurova Media Group (''Çukurova Medya Grubu'') is a Turkish media conglomerate established, part of the Çukurova Holding conglomerate. On 18 May 2013 it transferred a substantial number of its properties to the state TMSF, in partial settl ...

'', a position he left in December 2003 to create his own television channel called '' Kanaltürk''. On May 13, 2008, he sold this ''Kanaltürk'' with all its related side companies to Akın İpek, CEO of Koza Madencilik A.Ş. In September 2008, Tuncay Özkan founded a new television channel called ''Kanal Biz'' which was forced to close one year later due to financial difficulties at the time. Tuncay Özkan also worked for many years as a columnist for several Turkish national newspapers (''

Radikal ''Radikal'' () was a daily liberal Turkish language newspaper, published in Istanbul. From 1996 it was published by Aydın Doğan's Doğan Media Group. Although Radikal did not endorse a particular political alignment, it was generally considered ...

'', ''

Milliyet ''Milliyet'' ( Turkish for "''nationality''") is a Turkish daily newspaper published in Istanbul, Turkey. History and profile ''Milliyet'' came to publishing life at the Nuri Akça press in Babıali, Istanbul as a daily private newspaper on 3 ...

'' and ''

Akşam ''Akşam'' (''Evening'') is a Turkish newspaper founded in 1918, owned by Zeki Yeşildağ's Türk Medya Grup (T Medya Yatırım San. ve Tic. AŞ.) since 2013. In 2013 it had a circulation of around 100,000. History ''Akşams founders in 1918 incl ...

'').

Political career

As one of the founding fathers of the ''Cumhuriyet mitingleri'' (''Republican meetings''), Tuncay Özkan launched a political civic movement called ''Biz Kaç Kişiyiz'' (''How many of us is there?'') on September 12, 2007. In just seven months, this movement managed to gather over 1.3 million citizens, according to the official website, to protest against the Turkish government controlled by the conservative Islamist AKP. On June 23, 2008, Tuncay Özkan was elected as the chairman of the

''Yeni Parti'' (New Party) and, following his arrest in September 2008, the party replaced him to this position before merging with another political party named ''HEPAR''.

Ergenekon Case

Tuncay Özkan was put in prison on September 27, 2008 as an

Ergenekon Ergenekon (sometimes spelled ''Ergeneqon'', mn, Эргүнэ хун, Ergüne khun) is a founding myth of Turkic and Mongolic peoples.

suspect. According to the prosecution, he was a member of the terrorist organization which was allegedly preparing a Turkish secularist military coup against the Turkish government. Tuncay Özkan served his sentence at the Silivri Prison (80 km outside Istanbul). He was sharing a cell with the arrested journalist and Turkish MP

Mustafa Balbay Mustafa Ali Balbay (born August 8, 1960 in Burdur) is a journalist, writer and Turkish MP. As the main political correspondent in Ankara for the left-wing Kemalist daily newspaper ''Cumhuriyet'', he wrote a regular column called ''Gözlem'' whi ...

since October 2012. An appeal to the ECHR was turned down in early 2012. On 5 August 2013 Özkan was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. He was released on 10 March 2014.

Sözcü ''Sözcü'' (English: ''Spokesperson'') is a popular Turkish daily newspaper. ''Sözcü'' was first published on 27 June 2007 by Burak Akbay and is distributed nationwide. As of June 2018, it is one of the top-selling newspapers in Turkey, with ...

, 10 March 2014
Tuncay Özkan tahliye oldu
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Bibliography

*''Ötekiler'' (2013) *''Anne Canım Hiç Acımadı'' (2012) *''Hapiste Yatacak Olanlara Öğütler'' (2011) *''Zorbalığın Pençesinde'' *''Bir Casusun İftiraları / Tuncay Güney Hakkında Her Şey'' (2009) *''Danıştay Cinayeti Cumhuriyet'e Saldırı'' (2009) *''Yaraya Tuz Bastım 'Ermeni Soykırımı… (2007) *''Abdullah Öcalan Neden Verildi? Nasıl Yakalandı? Ne Olacak?'' (2005) *''CIA Kürtleri-Kürt Devletinin Gizli Tarihi'' (2004) *''Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı-MİT’in Gizli Tarihi'' (2003) *''Bush ve Saddam'ın Gölgesinde Entrikalar Savaşı'' (2003) *''Operasyon'' (2000) *''Parsadan Hikayesi'' (1996) *''Bir Gizli Servisin Tarihi'' (1996) *''Suikast Raporu 93/96'' (1996) *''Öldürün O Gazeteciyi'' (1994) *''Kıyamet Mahkemesi'' (1993)

References

External links