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Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Turkish authorities should revise the regulations and ensure that journalists covering matters of economics and finance can do so freely and without fear of retaliation.”
Veysel Ok, a lawyer and co-director of the Media and Law Studies Association, a local nongovernmental advocacy group, was cited as telling CPJ via messaging app that while the regulation does not specifically mention journalists, “the regulation has some open ended terms, therefore we cannot say that journalists would not be affected with a 100% [certainty].”
Last June, Turkish authorities charged two Bloomberg journalists for allegedly undermining the nation’s economy in their reporting, as CPJ documented at the time. The journalists face up to five years in jail if convicted, according to that report.
CPJ said it emailed the Turkish treasury and finance counsellor at Turkey’s US embassy for comment, but did not receive any reply.
Separately, CPJ ​said​ on May 12 that Turkish authorities must release journalists detained for their coverage of an intelligence officer and drop all charges against them.
2.3​ ​Convertibility of lira
BloombergHT reported on May 8 that local brokerage houses Ziraat Invest, Is Invest, Ak Invest and Deniz Invest have “decided” to halt new positions in leveraged TRY transactions. Spot the euphemism.
In London, bid-ask spreads on TRY transactions jumped to TRY0.50-1.00 from 20 kurus after Finance Minister Berat Albayrak’s May 6 tele-conference call with foreign investors ended with a ‘cop shop’ conclusion on May 7.
“We can see bid-ask spreads [on lira transactions] have extended. Some brokerage houses have taken steps to limit their customers’ transactions but it has not spread across the whole industry yet,” an unnamed brokerage house strategist told Reuters on May 11.
Multiple quotes for the lira across global markets have appeared, just as they did during the currency’s last turbulent chapter, which occurred in March last year prior to the Turkish local elections. Quotes for the value of the lira were a bit lower in local markets on May 11 compared to offshore quotes, Reuters reported.
“It’s only a short-term boost for President Tayyip Erdogan. His cajoling of the central bank to keep rates low has caused investors to dump the lira. With foreign currency reserves dwindling, he will need to find ways to boost the currency by the back door, such as trading restrictions. The little that’s left of the central bank’s credibility will pay the price,” Reuters commented on May 11 in its Breakingviews bulletin.
“CRY ME A LIRA” was Reuters’ comment on Erdogan’s short-lived row with BNP Paribas, Citigroup and UBS, in which Turkey’s banking watchdog banned the trio from FX market trading as the lira hit its new rock bottom.
The plummeting lira and Turkish accusations that unnamed foreign banks mounted a “manipulative attack” on the currency revived memories of the country’s 2018 currency crisis, the news service noted in its daily Take Five bulletin, under the heading of “REHEATED TURKEY”.
“Muddle-through scenario”​ “A muddle-through scenario is possible, we
13​ TURKEY Country Report​ June 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com