27 Acquitted, 1 Convicted of Insult in Twitter Case

İzmir 22^nd Assize Court ordered the acquittal of 27 out of 28 defendants charged with “igniting public to violating laws and insulting” during the Gezi Resistance.  

The hearing yesterday was observed by Kerem Altıparmak from Ankara University Political Science Department and Andrew Gardner from Amnesty International Turkey. 

Court panel judge Abdülkadir Certel ordered defendant Egemen Çinyekli to pay 8,100 liras for insulting via twitter messages, but postponed the declaration of verdict. The judge also defiled the case of Efecan Karakaş, a missing defendant with an arrest warrant. 

Gardner: This trial has no place in international law 

Following up the case from the first hearing, Andrew Gardner from Amnesty International Turkey told bianet that even though they welcomed the outcome, the case shouldn’t have been opened in the first place neither regarding the Turkish law nor international regulations. 

“This case is totally groundless. It is sad to see convictions from insult complaints because such crime shouldn’t exist in the penal law.”

Erdoğan called it a “trouble” 

During his prime ministry, Erdoğan said on June 3, 2013: “There is a trouble called  twitter. The most of lies are here. In my opinion, this social media thing is the biggest trouble of the society.”

Two days after Erdoğan’s words, 38 were detained in Izmir regarding insult charges via twitter.

While 29 of the aforementioned defendants were charged with up to 3 years of prison for “igniting the public not to obey the laws”, Erdoğan was listed as the only victim of the case. (EÖ/AS/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.