Court Convicts Journalist Kapmaz

The 13th High Criminal Court of Istanbul has announced the legal background for its conviction of daily Ülkede Özgür Gündem reporter Cengiz Kapmaz for his interview with Democracy Party (DEP) deputy Orhan Doğan.

However, the decision served upon reporter’s lawyer Özcan Kılıç presents no “justification”.

The report has gone beyond being an interview…

In the four-page long “decision with justification,” the only part about the conviction given on September 16 says the following:

“In the article the members of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) are presented as innocent, it is argued that these people should be elected into the Parliament as deputies. The article stops being an interview after some point and starts discussing topic that the terrorist organization should become legal, that how it is the representative of a certain group of people in the country and describing its political power. Thus it does propaganda for the said organization.”

The court had accused Kapmaz for “doing propaganda for the PKK” at his interview “PKK’nın Millet meclisine girmesine izin verin” (Allow the PKK elected to the Parliament) with DEP deputy Doğan and sentenced him to ten months in prison and a fine of about 200 euro. 

Doğan had said in the interview that a group of politicians under the leadership of Zübeyir Aydar could come to Turkey before the elections, become independent candidates and the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, could be moved to a house arrest.

The court had also sentenced manager in-charge Hasan Bayar and license holder Ali Gürbüz to the fines of 1000 euro and 2000 euro, respectively, for “doing propaganda for the PKK through the means of the media.” (EÖ/TB)