Mustafa Balbay
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Mustafa Ali Balbay MP |
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| Member of the Grand National Assembly | |
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Assumed office 12 June 2011 |
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| Constituency | İzmir (II) (2011, June 2015, Nov 2015) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 8, 1960 Burdur, Turkey |
| Citizenship | Turkey |
| Nationality | Turkish |
| Political party | Republican People's Party (CHP) |
| Alma mater | Ege Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi |
| Occupation | Journalist, Writer, Turkish MP |
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| Signature |  |
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 which he took over from the prominent investigative journalist Ugur Mumcu, who was assassinated in 1993. Balbay was arrested on March 5, 2009 as an Ergenekon suspect in the Odatv case, and in August 2009 he was sentenced to 34 years and eight months.
Mustafa Balbay began his journalistic career in 1980 as a student reporter for a local newspaper called Gazete Izmir. The next year, he was hired by the centre-left daily Milliyet for their Izmir office and later he moved to Cumhuriyet's office in Izmir as a permanent correspondent. In 1985, he became the chief investigating reporter in Izmir for the same newspaper and in 1989 he moved to their headquarters in Ankara to work as the news director. In 1992, Balbay was appointed Cumhuriyet news director in Istanbul. In 1993, he was appointed as the main political correspondent in Ankara for the left-wing Kemalist daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. Later, he gave some lectures for the Faculty of Journalism of Gazi University. Up to 2009, he had also a political talk show called Ankara Rüzgari (Winds from Ankara), co-chaired by the journalist Emin Çölaşan, on Avrasya TV (ART). After his arrest, he continued writing his regular column for Cumhuriyet.
Mustafa Balbay is detained as part of the government’s investigation into the alleged Ergenekon plot, that authorities claim was aimed at overthrowing the current Turkish government through a military coup. He was initially detained on July 1, 2008, brought to Istanbul, and questioned about his news coverage and his relations with the military and other Ergenekon suspects. Police searched his house and the Ankara office of Cumhuriyet, confiscating computers and documents. Released four days later, Balbay was detained a second time in March 2009 and placed at Silivri F Type Prison in Istanbul pending trial. He was moved to solitary confinement on February 28, 2011. His first trial appearance took place after nine months in detention. On February 25, 2011, the president of the Court, Köksal Şengün, officially opposed his detention, however the court decided to keep him in detention with majority votes. From October 2012, he shared a cell with the arrested journalist Tuncay Özkan.
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Wikipedia