Turkey Convicted for Anti-Terrorism Law

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) convicted Turkey of an illegal restriction of freedom of expression on the grounds of the trials held against Aylin Güzel, owner and editor-in-chief of the Maya magazine, and Aziz Özer, chief editor of the Yeni Dünya için Çağrı magazine (Call for a new world).

The decision was announced on Tuesday (6 July). The ECHR unanimously decided for a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights on Freedom of Expression. Turkey has to pay a total of € 2,170 and another € 3,120 in compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage to applicants Gözel and Özer, respectively.

"Automatic repression"

The Turkish Judge Işıl Karakuş was part of the chamber of judges. The chamber decreed that "the grounds given by the Turkish courts for the interference in question, while pertinent, were not sufficient".

The ECHR criticized that the Anti-Terrorism Law (TMY) "contained no obligation for the judges to carry out a textual or contextual examination of the writings, applying the criteria established and implemented by the Court under Article 10. The Court had found a violation of that provision in numerous cases against Turkey in which media professionals had been convicted for publishing statements by terrorist organisations, without any further analysis by the judges".

"This virtually automatic repression, without taking into account the objectives of the media professionals or the right of the public to be informed of another view of a conflict situation, could not be reconciled with the freedom to receive or impart information or ideas", the Strasbourg court declared.

Punishment and publication ban under TMY

In February 2003, the Maya magazine published an article entitled "Imminent war in Middle East threatens Turkish Bourgeoisie!". It contained a statement by an executive of the illegal Marxist-Leninist/Turkish Communist Party (TKP/ML), concerning hunger strikes by prisoners of F type prisoners. Gözel was acquitted of charges of "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization" but she was sentenced to a monetary fine on the grounds of publishing a statement of an illegal organization.

The Yeni Dünya İçin Çağrı magazine published an article entitled "The Great Workers' Resistance of 15 and 16 June and the Revolutionary Movement in Turkey" in June 2002. The anonymously published article dealt with peaceful demonstrations by workers on 15 and 16 June 1971. It particularly looked at the role of left-wing movements in those demonstrations, focussing on the leading contribution of Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, founder of the TKP/ML. In the same issue, a statement by eight prisoners entitled "To our people" was published.

Aziz Özer was sentenced to a monetary fine under the Anti-Terror Law. The publication of the magazine was suspended for two weeks on the grounds of having "undermined the national security". (EÖ/VK)