Court Upholds Prison Sentence for Journalist

Writer Bekdil is convicted for "insulting and deriding the administration of justice" by criticizing the judiciary system. He told bianet he would go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Writer Bekdil is sentenced to a suspended prison term of a year and eight months.

In an article published on August 27, 2001 and titled, "Turkey's de jure Untouchables," Bekdil wrote: "The probability for an ordinary Turk to receive a fair trial, - if he/she is as naive as to trust Turkish courts and judges, that is - will be one in a million."

Bekdil will be sent to prison if he is found guilty of charges of the same character by July 2007. His conviction has been reported by Reuters and the AP.

Mine Cevik, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper and writer Bekdil were initially sentenced to a suspended prison term of a year and eight months in May 2002.

An Ankara Heavy Penalty Court had first sentenced Cevik to a year in prison and then reduced it to 10 months due to good conduct. In the end, the court commuted the sentence to a fine of 1,440 new Turkish liras (USD 1,066) and suspended the penalty by majority of votes.

"Harmonization" wasn't enough for the judicial trial

The court ruling constitutes the first convictions after the First Harmonization Law No: 4744 went into effect in February.

"I hope that there won't be any trials in the scope of freedom of expression. I hope that journalists will never be subjects of such trials," Cevik had told bianet at the time of her conviction.

The Supreme Court of Appeals had overturned the ruling after the journalists appealed the case. However the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals was met with opposition from the local court. In a second appeal, the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

Turkey, which formally began negotiations for joining the European Union, is criticized for handing out prison sentences for deeds committed through the media. (EO/EA/YE)