Appeal Court Overturns Conviction of Journalist

The Supreme Court of Appeal's 4th Law Chamber has unanimously overturned the sentence of journalist Nurgün Balcıoğlu, who had been sentenced to paying 20,000 TL (around 10,000 Euros) compensation to retired judge Zekeriya Dilsizoğlu.

Dilsizoğlu had said, "Of every 10,000 murder trials, 9,000 are due to women." Journalist Balcıoğlu had criticised the statement in an article in the Gaziantep Sabah newspaper.

On 13 May 2008, the Bakırköy 8th Civil Court of First Instance sentenced her and the newspaper's editor Fethullah Kapkapcı to paying 20,000 TL compensation.

Judge Dilsizoğlu, who was himself a judge at Bakırköy before retiring, had demanded 100,000 TL compensation.

"Court should have dismissed case"

On 9 June 2009, the appeals court decided that the court in Bakırköy should have rejected the case completely. The journalist was informed of the decision by mail today (30 July).

The case will now go back to a local court. Balcıoğlu told bianet that she would fight for the case to be dismissed.

The Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiff made unproven subjective comments, hurtful to women, which gave the defendants the rigth to severely criticise.

Criticism of mysogyny

On 15 February 2007, Balcıoğlu had written an article entitled "Is the judge that judge?", in which she had criticised the judge as a misogynist, giving as an example the fact that an advertisement of his brother's death did not include either name of the deceased's two wives.

When his brother, a dentist, had been found stabbed to death in his office, Dilsizoğlu had told journalists at the funeral: "I was head judge at High Criminal Court for fifteen years. We decided on perhaps 10,000 murder cases. We found that women were involved in 9,000 of them. This investigation is continuing, but hopefully the perpetrator will be found soon." The journalist had quoted this "unfortunate statement" and had described the judge as "the lawyer of drug smuggler Urfi Çetinkaya". She had also written two more articles, entitled "Honourable judge, what a pity" and "yes, yes, it is him".

The journalist was also put on trial at the Gaziantep 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance" for "insults", but the case reached its statute of limitations on 7 November 2007. (EÖ/AG)