Criticism Won over Misogynistic Statement at Court

Journalist Nurgün Balcıoğlu eventually avoided litigation over a TL 20,000 (€ 10,000) compensation claim filed by retired judge Zekeriya Dilsizoğlu. Balcıoğlu had initially been sentenced to pay the compensation which was filed because of her criticizing the judge for his statement that "Of every 10,000 murder trials, 9,000 are due to women." The Court of Appeals 4^th Law Chamber overturned the sentence and the local court complied with the decision, thus the case was dismissed.

On 9 June 2009, the Court of Appeals had decided that the Bakırköy 8^th Criminal Court of First Instance "should have rejected the case completely". The court retried the case and this time decided to reject it on 17 June 2010.

"I always believed in justice, I stand by my words"

Balcıoğlu, publication director of the Gaziantep Sabah newspaper, talked to bianet after the rejection of the case: "It never even came to my mind that I would lose this case. I believed from my heart in the legitimacy of my writing and I still stand by my words today. If I had lost this case I would have applied to the European Court of Human Rights", the journalist said.

"A statement offensive to women was harshly criticized"

On 13 March 2008, the local court had partially accepted the compensation claim of originally TL 100,000 (€50,000) and sentenced Balcıoğlu and the daily's editor-in-chief, Fethullah Kapkapcı, to paying TL 20,000 in compensation.

The Court of Appeals decreed: "The statement of the complainant lacked scientific proof, was based on a subjective opinion and was an offence against women with its generalization. The right to harsh criticism emerging from the statement as voiced in the writings of the defendant must be accepted". The court decided that the criticism voiced by the defendant remained within legal limits and that she should not be held responsible for the compensation.

Unanimous opinion: "The case should have been rejected"

The court unanimously decided to overturn the decision of the local court. In the meantime, the case tried at the Gaziantep 2^nd Criminal Court of First Instance had been closed by prescription on 7 November 2007.

In a writing entitled "Is this judge the one?" making the headlines on 15 February 2007, Balcoğlu had criticized Dilsizoğlu as an "enemy of women" because he had not even mentioned one name of  the two wives in the obituary notice for his brother which was published in several newspapers.

Criticism

Balcıoğlu wrote, "An interesting profile of the judge emerged after dentist İ. Hakkı Dilsizoğlu had been stabbed four times during a treatment. Dizsizoğlu was the brother of Zekeriaya Dilsizoğlu, retired judge of the Bakırköy [Istanbul] High Criminal Court Presidency. At his funeral, Zekeriya Dilsizoğlu made an unfortunate statement to the journalists, saying, 'I was the President of the High Criminal Court for 15 years. We decided maybe 10,000 murder cases.  We found that 9,000 of them were committed due to women...'" Later on she referred to the plaintiff as "the lawyer of drug smuggler Urfi Çetinkaya". (EÖ/VK)