Journalist Eker Convicted of "Propaganda"

Journalist Berivan Eker, former Editor-in-Chief of the Kurdish women magazine Renge Heviya Jine ('The colour of women's hope), received a prison sentence of two years and six months on charges of "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization".

bianet talked to Eker's lawyer Meral Atasoy about the decision given by the 6^th High Criminal Court of Diyarbakır, a Kurdish-majority city in south-eastern Turkey. Atasoy said that Eker was handed down two separate sentences on the grounds of "organizational propaganda". She explained that the punishment was set at the lower limit due to a mitigation applied for good conduct. Eker was both convicted and released from detention at the final hearing on Tuesday (25 January). She will have to go back to prison if the Court of Appeals upholds the decision.

Eker had been arrested in November 2010 upon an arrest warrant when she was on her way to consult her lawyer about the upcoming trial. She was incarcerated in the Diyarbakır E Type Prison for two months. At the Tuesday hearing, she did not accept the charges pressed against her and requested her acquittal.

Lawyer Atasoy claimed that her client did not act with the intention to commit a criminal offence. She stated that the magazine had no connections to any "illegal organization" and that the articles on subject did not contain any elements of crime.

The court board decreed to acquit Eker of charges of "committing a crime on behalf of an illegal organization without being a member of that organization". At the same time, the court ruled for a two-count sentence under allegations of "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization". (EÇ/EÖ/VK)