Journalist Sued for Comment on Attack on Kurdish Politician

A lawyer from Diyarbakır (south-eastern Turkey), member of the local Bar Association for almost 50 years, filed a criminal complaint against Yılmaz Özdil from the nationwide Hürriyet newspaper yesterday (15 April).

Özdil had commented on the recent attack on pro-Kurdish politician Ahmet Türk in a writing entitled "Punch", published in the Hürriyet daily one day earlier (14 April). Özdil wrote, "The person who punched Ahmet Türk on his nose was an interpreter of the feelings of many people in this country".

bianet talked to former Bar Association President Sezgin Tanrıkulu. According to the lawyer, journalist Özdil is facing prison sentence under charges of article 215 of the Turkish Criminal Law (TCK) on "praising a crime and a criminal" and article 216 on "inciting hatred and hostility amongst the public and humiliation of the public".

Tanrıkulu: Özdil's article is a hate speech

Even if both articles are used in reverse by the judges, Tanrıkulu agrees that Özdil in fact wrote his article in order to prevent hate crimes, hate speech and racism. However, "The attack on Türk was a hate crime. Özdil's article constitutes a hate speech because it tries to justify the attack", the lawyer explained.

Tanrıkulu drew attention to the following passage of Özdil's article: "Have a look in the newspapers and on the websites and read the comments on this news... The punch was put in the place of the 'hammer of justice'. The person who punched Ahmet Türk on his nose became the interpreter of the feelings of many people in this country".

"This sentence is particularly striking. It tries to show the attack as legitimate, it encourages the people to that sort of actions and it suggests that a large part of society tolerates the attack", Tanrıkulu indicated.

Hate crime and hate speech

According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a hate crime can be defined as:

"any criminal offence, including offences against persons or property, where the victim, premises, or target of the offence are selected because of their real or perceived connection, attachment, affiliation, support or membership of a group. A group may be based upon a characteristic common to its members, such as real or perceived race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or other similar factor".

The Council of Europe defines hate speech as:

"covering all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, antisemitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin". (TK/VK)