Court blocks access to reports on Turkey-based bank's activities revealed in FinCEN files

Reports about the suspicious transactions of a bank that is owned by a holding close to the government and four news outlets, including Sendika.org, which was banned for the 63rd time, were blocked by a court this week.

Also, trials of four journalists continued, one journalist was detained over social media posts and one journalist was indicted for "targeting a counterterrorism official."

The interventions against media outlets and journalists between September 25 and October 1:

Access block on bank's activities revealed in FinCEN files

Access to news reports about a bank's "suspicious transactions" based on the FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) Files, which were leaked from the US Secretary of the Treasury, has been blocked, according to bianet's Media Monitoring Database.

The İstanbul Anadolu 1st Penal Judgeship of Peace imposed an access block on a news article on the Turkish edition of Germany's state-run Deutsche Welle, titled, "Accusation from US banks: Aktif Bank facilitates suspicious transactions," on the news report "Aktif Bank has also come out of the documents" published on Cumhuriyet newspaper's website and the news report "Berat Albayrak Detail in FİNcen Documents: Money was transferred to Taliban and sexually explicit websites" published on the website of Halk TV (September 30).

Click to read the full articles (1) (2)

Sixty-third access block for Sendika.org

Two courts blocked access to the websites of four media outlets in a week.

On September 25, Yeni Yaşam newspaper's website was blocked by a penal judgeship of peace. It switched to yeniyasamgazetesi2.com after the block order. 

On September 30, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) blocked access to Sendika.org and Yeni Demokrasi news sites and Mesopotamia Agency (MA).

This was the seventh block order for Yeni Demokrasi, the 23rd block order for MA and the 63rd block order for Sendika.org. The site is now online at sendika64.org.

Click to read the full articles (1) (2) (3) (4)  

Journalists facing "terrorism" charges

The trial of Özgür Gündem newspaper's co-editor in chief Hüseyin Aykol, journalist Hasan Başak and Reyhan Çapan continued at the İstanbul 13th Heavy Penal Court on October 1.

The prosecutor requested Aykol, Başak and Çapan to be sentenced for "openly inciting to commit crimes," "praising an offense and offender," "propagandizing for a terrorist organization." while Reyhan Çapan for openly inciting to commit crimes, praising an offense and offender and successively propagandizing for a terrorist organization due to articles and news published.

At the hearing held on October 1, 2020, the court board ruled that the execution of the warrants issued against other defendants should be awaited and the next hearing should be held on December 3 (October 1).

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Economist to appear before the court for "insulting Erdoğan"

Journalist and economist Mustafa Sönmez will be put on trial on the charge of "insulting the President" over Twitter posts where he called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan "the chief of a thief gang" and "a piece of a dictator."

His tweets on Reza Zarrab, a businessperson arrested in the US in 2016 for evading the US sanctions on Iran, were also included in the file. "Mr. Zarrab will not be put on trial alone. Halkbank and the Erdoğan government, who gave him this opportunity, will be all defendants. Reza would say that he did not do it on his own," he had said.

Sönmez is facing 4 years and 8 months in prison and will have his first hearing on November 3.

Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code: Any person who insults the President of the Republic shall be sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of one to four years. Where the offence is committed in public, the sentence to be imposed shall be increased by one sixth.

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"Targeting a counterterrorism official"

The editor-in-chief of TELE1 TV, Merdan Yanardağ, was indicted on September 28 for "targeting a chief public prosecutor."

According to the indictment, a news report on TELE1 referred to Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor Yüksel Kocaman as "the prosecutor of Selahattin Demirtaş," the imprisoned former co-chair of the People's Democratic Party (HDP), and said, "The moment he got married, he went to the [presidential] palace in no time."

With this report, TELE1 "made a counterterrorism official a target," the indictment said.

As the editor-in-chief of the broadcaster, Merdan Yanardağ was charged with Article 6/1 of the Anti-Terror Law.

Article 6/1 of Law on Fight Against Terrorism: Those who announce or publish that a crime will be committed by terrorist organizations against persons, in a way that makes possible that these persons can be identified, whether or not by specifying their names and identities, or those who disclose or publish the identities of state officials that were assigned in the fight against terrorism or those who mark persons as targets, in the same manner, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to three years. Those who print or publish declarations or announcements of terrorist organizations shall be punished with imprisonment from one to three years.

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(VK)