MLSA: Journalists, activists increasingly charged with terrorism in 2021

Police detaining AFP photjournalist Bülent Kılıç during LGBTI+ Pride March (Photo: Sedat Elbasan)

Click to read the article in Turkish

The Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) has released the Trial Monitoring Report, which covers 147 hearings of 98 cases held in 11 provinces between January 1 and July 15.

The report notes that the tendency to try journalists and activists without arrest, which was observed in the previous period as well, continued, but the charges against defendants did not change.

In the previous period, the rate of pre-trial detention was 6 percent whereas it was 3 percent in this period.

"Terrorism" charges

The share of charges related to "terrorism" rose from 46 percent to 54 percent in this period.

After "terrorism," the most common charge was "insulting the president," which made up 6 percent of all charges.

There was a significant decrease in the convictions of crimes as per the Anti-Terror Law from 78 percent to 30 percent.

However, it was observed that convictions of other offenses increased. The share of convictions of "insulting the president" increased from 10 percent to 25 percent and of "insulting a public official" increased from 5 percent to 17 percent.

In this period, the number of journalists who are imprisoned because of journalism dropped from 66 to 60. There are currently 57 journalists and media employees in prisons.

Fair trial

In 30 of the 147 hearings covered by the report, the MLSA observers said the defendants doubted they stood a fair trial.

In 11 hearing, the observers were concerned about the impartiality of the courts.

The principle of the publicity of trials was not respected in 10 hearings and right to a fair trial was violated due to lengthy trials in five hearings, MLSA noted.

Also, the observers stated they suspected that the witnesses might be fake in three hearings.

Who stood trial?

Among 562 defendants in 98 cases, 42 percent were journalists, 23 percent were activist, and 11 percent were politicians. There were also lawyers (2 percent), writers (2 percent), students (2 percent) media employees (1 percent), artists (1 percent) and academics (1 percent) among the defendants.

There were a total of 149 criminal charges in 98 cases.

The defendants were charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" (Anti-Terror Law article 7/2) in 37 cases, "disclosing the identity of public officials who took part in the fight against terrorism" (Anti-Terror Law article 6) in nine cases, "committing a crime on behalf of or aiding an illegal organization whilst not being a member of it" (Turkish Penal Code article 220/6-7) in six cases, "establishing an organization to commit a crime" (Turkish Penal Code article 220) in three cases and "violating law no 6415 on preventing financing of terrorism" in one case.

Sixty-four percent of the evidence against the defendants was related to journalism activities. In 20 cases, statements by defendants, witnesses or complainants were presented as evidence and association activities were considered as criminal evidence in six cases. (HA/VK)