Case Against Besikci and "Esmer" Dropped

Sociologist Ismail Besikci had written an article entitled "We did not talk, we were suppressed" for the December 2005 issue of the "Popüler Kürtür Esmer" ("Popular Kurture Dark"), a pro-Kurdish magazine published in Turkish and Kurdish.

Case not opened in time 

Besikci as well as magazine owner Ferzende Kaya and editor Mehmet Ali Izmir were then charged under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code, i.e. "inciting hatred and hostility". Sentences of 4 years and six months each were being demanded.

Ironically, the case was dropped on Human Rights Day  yesterday (10 December) because a case was not opened within the stipulated 2 months from the date when the issue of the magazine was delivered to the prosecution.

Besikci's lawyer Mükrime Tepe evaluated the decision for bianet, saying: "We expected this decision. We kept drawing attention to the issue of time. The prosecutor preparing the indictment should have taken this issue into account."

The Bakirköy 2nd Penal Court, which calculated the relevant time period from when a letter from the Istanbul Public Prosecution was sent, decreed that no case had been opened within the stipulated time. Citing Article 26 of Press Law No. 5187, which was passed in June 2004 and deals with the duration of court cases, the court dropped the case.

According to the article, "Criminal court cases related to crimes committed in published works [...] have to be opened within two months for periodicals and within four months for other works."

General Staff had complained

The General Staff filed a "secret" complaint with the Ministry of Justice's Criminal General Directorate concerning an article entitled "Ghost", written by Ahmet Kahraman and published in December 2005 as well as the article by Ismail Besikci.

Following the complaint, an investigation was carried out. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Emin Artuk, lecturer in the law faculty of Marmara University in Istanbul, was applied to for a report of expertise. Concerning Kahraman's article, Artuk concluded that "the rights to inform and criticise were used, no expressions denigrating Turkishness or the armed forces were used; there was strong criticism not of the army as a whole, but of [chief of general staff] Yasar Büyükanit, and thus there was no crime committed under Article 301." There was then no case opened against Kahraman.

Indictment prepared under Article 216 

According to Artuk, Besikci's article also did not represent a crime under Article 301, but "some expressions could represent the crime of 'inciting hatred and hostility among the public'". Prosecutor Remzi Yasar Kizilhan then prepared an indictment against Besikci and the magazine representatives under Article 216.

Besikci systematically penalised 

When sociologist Ismail Besikci wrote about the Kurdish issue in the "Özgür Gündem" newspaper and in his books published by Yurt Publications, he was on trial with more than a hundred years imprisonment demanded.

Besikci, some of whose books are still banned, was in prison for years. He was released under the Conditional Amnesty Law No. 4304. (EÖ/TK/AG)