Appeals court upholds journalist's conviction for photographing student's killing by police

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

An appeals court has uphold journalist Abdurrahman Gök's prison sentence for photographing Kemal Kurkut's killing by the police during the 2017 Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır.

The Diyarbakır 5th Heavy Penal Court on June 30, 2022, sentenced Gök to 1 year, 6 months and 22 days in prison for "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" while acquitting him of "being a member of an illegal organization."

The police had shot Kurkut near a security checkpoint in the area where hundreds of thousands of people had attended to mark Newroz. Gök had photographed the moments.

Gök's reports about the Kurdish groups' fight against ISIS in Syria during the 2014 siege of Kobanî were also cited as a reason for the conviction.

Examining an appeal by Gök, the 9th Penal Chamber of the Diyarbakır Regional Court of Justice ruled unanimously that the decision was appropriate.

Resul Temur, the attorney of Gök, said the court had sentenced Gök "without discussing his identity as a journalist."

However, he said, the article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law about "terror propaganda" intends to protect journalists by stating that expressions that do not exceed the limit of criticism should not be considered alaments of crime.

"Everybody knows that the sentence given to Abdurrahman Gök was not lawful. As it didn't approach legally, the court also avoided implementing law articles." (EMK/VK)