NOT WORTH A TOSS: the information site of the Turkish MoJ

The Turkish Ministry of Justice has set up an “information website”. It’s nicely done, with pleasant coloring and appealing presentation.

It could whet the site-visitors’ appetite to read the information on the site. The verb “could” is chosen here on purpose: because one doesn’t know wether this is real information on that site or if it’s just a load of disinformation.

You’re sceptical? Have a look yourself:

7th of March 20117, TR724 published the following news: DISMISSED JUDGE OF COUNCIL OF STATE PASSED AWAY. It was claimed that the former dismissed rapporteur judge at the Council of State, Mehmet Tosun, passed away and was buried today.

And what does the website of the Turkish Ministry of Justice make out of this event? They write (last visited 09/03/2017; if you can’t find it there anymore, here is a copy):

“Allegations over former judge M.T.’s death in prison are all baseless 08.03.2017

It is deemed necessary to make the following public release in order to inform the public correctly regarding the news published in certain media organs that “M.T.  a 29 year old  rapporteur judge of the Council of State … died in prison.”

Following the examination made;

A judge named M.T. is detained in Eskişehir H Type Closed Penal Execution Institution, within the scope of FETO/PDY investigations. The relevant judge is alive now. For this reason, the news indicating that Judge M.T. died in the penal execution institution is baseless.

Respectfully announced to the public.”

Well, the initials of Mehmet Tosun are indeed M.T. But – and you will not be too surprised – this alone doesn’t mean that the name of the judge M.T, detained in Eskişehir H Type Closed Penal Execution Institution, is necessarily “Mehmet Tosun”, right? This judge’s name could be for instance Mehmet Tunç or Mine Taşkın or Murat Türk or … [you can chose yourself, there are lots of judges and prosecutors with the initials M.T. on the official list of people to be dismissed or/and detained].

But – your plea might be – what if the name of this judge, detained in Eskişehir H Type Closed Penal Execution Institution, who has the initials M.T is really Mehmet Tosun?

Yeah, what then?

Let us have another look at this ominous list:

You know what, there are TWO Mehmet Tosun on that list:

And guess what:

We don’t know anything about the situation of Mehmet Tosun, 1290 – 97693, Idare Mah.Üyesi.

But what we definitely know is that Mehmet Tosun, 2493 – 151133, Danistay Tetkik Hakimi, has passed away. And we know that he was detained regardless of his medical condition and didn’t get the required medical treatment.

Well, there’s one point where the website of the Turkish Ministry of Justice is indeed right: Mehmet Tosun didn’t die in prison (by the way only: at least TR724 didn’t claim that Judge Tosun died in prison; but it sounds good to deny such a [not made] claim anyhow, doesn’t it?) : he was released and died “only” afterwards.

What do you think ?