Two journalists given prison sentence over reports on prosecutor
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Two journalists have been given a prison sentence for reporting on a prosecutor who ran an investigation into a 2021 incident where two citizens were thrown out of a helicopter in Van and a 2020 investigation against Kurdish journalists on "terror" charges.
The Van 2nd Heavy Penal Court found Ferhat Çelik and İdris Yayla guilty of "marking people who participated in the fight against terrorism as a target," MLSA reported.
Çelik did not attend the hearing while Yayla was present in the court room. In his statement, Yayla argues that "the duty of the press is not only to communicate and report the news, but also to transfer events related to human rights and public issues to the public sphere. The restrictions on freedom of expression must be applied narrowly when it comes to press freedom, as the impact of such transmissions on public discussion and the protection of rights and freedoms makes it a legal necessity."
Yayla also made it clear that he would not accept the deferral of the judgment if he was found guilty. The court handed down a sentence of 1 year and 3 months in prison to both Çelik and Yayla.
What happened?The charges against the journalists was based on the news article titled "The same prosecutor gave detention orders for journalists" published on October 8, 2020, in the Mezopotamya Agency. The news article in question addressed the torture of Osman Şiban and Servet Turgut, who were detained by soldiers in Çatak district of Van on September 11, 2020, and thrown from a helicopter. The journalists Adnan Bilen, Cemil Uğur, Şehriban Abi, Nazan Sala, and former newspaper distributors Şükran Erdem, Mikail Tunçdemir, and Fehim Çetiner, who raised this issue in their reporting, were detained on October 6, 2020, by the prosecutor who was investigating the law enforcement officials responsible for the torture of Turgut and Şiban, identified as I.K. in the press. In the indictment, the prosecutor claimed that the news article by MA was shared by "media organizations affiliated with the terror organization." The prosecutor also demanded that the journalists be punished. In addition to the news outlets mentioned in the indictment, including Evrensel, ArtıGerçek, and the website of People's Democratic Party (HDP) Kocaeli MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, the indictment also claimed that the news article in question was published on October 8, 2020, but included October 9, 2020, as the "date of the crime". |
(HA/VK)