Click to read the article in Turkish
Standing trial as per the Article 329/1 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and the Article 27 of the Law on State Intelligence Services and National Intelligence Organization due to the news regarding the funeral of a National Intelligence Organization (MİT) officer killed in Libya, seven journalists had their second hearing at the İstanbul 34th Heavy Penal Court. We are publishing their full statements as to the accusations.
CLICK - Journalists on trial for revealing identity of intelligence officer
***
Dear Chief Judge, Dear panel of judges;
Here I appear before you once more to defend myself in the name of justice and law, against the injustice and unlawfulness I face as a journalist who has been marked - just as the doors of the officers once were with the letter 'mim' as they demanded freedom a century ago, at a time when the understanding of 'justice punishing people' has become 'people punishing people'.
I held the prosecutor's consideration document in hand, saw the sentencing and realized that once more that my hopes were for nothing.
I cannot comprehend that the accusations set against me are boiled down to a single word, yet required sentencing.
Part of the accusations was about the 15-minute Sputnik interview I've given. I saw the same reference in the prosecutor's sentencing demands. I've been through all this, also during the Ergenekon proceedings. We are going to get overall by justice. We will do this by preventing politics from entering into the courtrooms.
Justice is one of the most important issues that has been dealt with throughout the history of humanity.
The eyes of Justitia, that beautiful woman who tries to secure justice, holding a sword in hand is closed for a reason. It is because she refrains from any behavior or attitude that might cast a shadow upon impartiality.
The first five clauses of the code of Hammurabi, which was engraved on clay tablets in the post-Sumerian era and considered to be the first written codes of mankind, are about 'justice'.
'A state that lacks justice gets destroyed by its own injustices', says Socrates.
'A just court is the strongest pillar of the state structure,' Plato says.
'Justice is the soul of the universe,' says Omer Hayyam.
'A country can survive upon curse but not upon injustice, brutality. Justice is the very base of a country. Allowing justice for an hour values more than 60 years of worship,' says our Prophet Holy Mohammad.
Magna Carta of 1215 emphasizes the concept of 'justice' along with rights and liberties. All following codes of the modern era have safeguarded this principle.
According to Kant, 'justice' is about people putting forth the attitude they expect to receive from others.
Since the Enlightenment, justice has been more than a personal virtue as it has become a principle that formed the basis of societal peace. The sense of justice in a society is truly developed if its citizens are all equal before the law, equally benefit rights and liberties and especially if the freedom of people acting within law is not restricted.
That's why international organizations such as the UN, states and governments primarily refer to the concept of justice in all their statements. Because they know that societies or any kind of human unity can only be established upon the basis of justice. No state, government or social structure has ever possibly survived with a distorted sense of justice. Historical records are full of references of governments with revealed brutalities perishing after the sense of justice gets tarnished.
İbn Haldun Mukaddime has also referred to justice as a virtue beyond personal terms, introducing it as the highest principle that governments should adhere to. Because, while personal injustices might get corrected, injustices of governments and courts that function under their jurisdiction cannot be easily be corrected. Unlike assumed, injustices are not only about confiscating someone's right or property without paying their dues or presenting a reason. Injustice is much bigger than that. It should be known that the reason behind the wisdom of the lawmaker is to prevent injustices hence prevent actions that would destroy civilization. Because, if not prevented, it might even lead to human extinction. In the end, it is only the rulers, those who hold the power to govern that can resort to injustice...
Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk has valued justice equal to independence.
The concept of the court comes from Arabic, meaning the place where a decision is made after an examination based on wit. Human, different from other beings, leads with his intellect. Being intelligent is about analyzing data as is - not based on pre-set concepts. Justice, on the other hand, comes from being just, in other words being balanced and leveled. Practicing justice means reasserting righteousness.
Today, 68 percent of the Turkish people do not believe that laws are applied to everyone equally, impartially and in fairness. In other words, an overwhelming majority of our citizens think that 'everyone', as mentioned in the Constitution, covers him/herself. They don't trust the judiciary, think the judiciary is not equal or independent.
Turkey was listed the 154th among 180 countries in the World Press Index of the Reporters Without Borders. This is the point we're at as a country in terms of Freedom of Press and Expression; the reason being journalists who have been unjustly kept in jail for 6 months because of a Tweet or a story that he/she reported.
The only responsible behind the erosion and decline of confidence in justice, the law is the institutions and people who represent justice. Those who place law and justice at the disposal of the government; who consider both as the serving stations of the powerful; who allow politics, injustice and fear into the courtrooms, have destroyed the trust in law and justice.
The grudge and rage of the political government have destroyed the common sense in courtrooms, hurt the conscience.
Hence the sense of justice has disappeared, being replaced by managed law, aforehand judiciary and political grudge.
Let's remember what our country has been through because of the members of the judiciary who acted upon political grudge, who were stripped of their sense of justice, and what happened to them. We already mentioned that the most important quality of human is his ability to use his intellect. Yet, one of the most incomprehensible qualities of the human is also its inability to learn a lesson and the ability to forget. Some people are incapable of profit from history; and because they do not feel the misery deep in their hearts, they keep repeating the same mistakes of the past. History is both vicious and also the facilitator of justice no matter how long it delays. I am sure justice will prevail sooner or later, but also sure that those who want to have me convicted without any crimes being committed will also face the punishment they deserve.
As Pascal said, we relive the times that 'we deem the powerful as the right one because we cannot reassert the right as powerful'. We do not learn our lesson even after we saw how powerless the judiciary has been as a tool in FETO's plot cases and, in return, how brutal a government without the sense of justice might become.
We saw how a justice-deprived rule had become a managed structure and how all judicial organs have borne the blame. Following the FETO/PYD operations before and after the treacherous 15 July coup attempt, 3,908 judges and prosecutors were purged. Even this single figure is a summary of what I've been trying to tell so far. The moment we say things cannot get worse; they do.
We do not get smarter, we don't thin, we do not learn a lesson. We will keep living through the same things over and over as long as the rightful is not powerful and the powerful is not rightful. Yesterday, we were talking about FETO infiltrating the judiciary. Today, when we are supposed to discuss justice, independence of justice and superiority of law, we keep speculating whether its METO or PETO that have replaced positions freed by FETO. Tomorrow, the talk will be about another organization. Unless the judiciary is independent, fair and brave, we will be talking about structures backed by political powers that desire to possess the judiciary, and judges, prosecutors who have become their servants.
Yesterday, we have been through the period of FETO plot cases, during which agencies, personnel, judicial bureaucracy, officers, intellectuals, journalists, politicians have been removed from office as obstacles hindering the coalition between the politics and the religious community reach its goals. As close witnesses of this period, defendants in these plots, we, three journalists, are again under arrest and stand trial as defendants in a case which, I think, will be referred as 'The Plot – Version 2', aiming to intimidate the society, silence and scare the opposition.
I don't mean to implicate your court here but want to warn. Because we are now experiencing and experienced exactly what we've experienced during the FETO plot cases – identical.
Plot cases were based upon fabricated documents, fake evidence, secret witnesses, forced accusations that contained interpretations and probabilities derived from lies and smears. Our court case today carries the same qualities.
In those cases, the presumption of innocence was assumed non-existent. So as in today's cases. Back then, we were first targeted in newspapers and get lynched, so is the case today. Back then, indictments were drafted on boats, behind closed doors – all were revealed later. Today, there's a widespread perception that they are drafted in waterfront villas. Back then, newspapers drafted the indictment, TV channels held the trial, columnists handed down the ruling. So is the perception also today. Back then, prosecutors, judges wouldn't listen to us, read our petitions, so they refuse to listen to us, read our petitions. Back then, the rulings were cut and pasted, and the perception is, so they are today. In short, we relive the period of the same Plot cases.
Dear Chief Judge,
Since Roman times, the law has obliged the claimant to prove his claim. The one who failed to prove his claim even got into books as a slanderer and an unjust claimant, his forehead marked with the first letter of 'Kalumnia', which meant 'slander'.
In the modern law system, however, when a person is charged with a crime, it is the duty of the judiciary to prove the crime. The Judiciary, with legal means in hand, should present all the evidence related to the person charged. In a penal court proceeding, it is directly the responsibility of the judiciary to prove the crime. You cannot tell the citizen, "prove your crime". If said so, it would be not only against the basic rules of law but also contradict the international agreements that we are part of. In brief, the claimant is liable to prove his claim. In this trial, the liability to prove the accusations set against me belongs to the court.
The indictment, which the prosecutor presented to your court is the document of this liability. I read the indictment several times and each time I identified it with an anecdote.
One day, an ignorant hodja, addressing a crowd, had Holiness Yusuf in mind, asking, "Which saint was he that his sisters threw him to a lake until his mother came to his rescue." A wise man stepped, saying, "Which part shall I start correcting, brother? First of all, he was not a saint but a prophet; it was not his sisters, but his brothers. They did not throw him to a lake but into a well, it was not his mother who saved him but a group of travelers."
Unfortunately, the case of this indictment is just like this story. Accusations set against me are entirely wrong, unwarranted accusations that lack evidence and merely an intention. That's why, in my initial defense, I called the indictment an 'intention-ment'.
Indictments should not be texts of intention. They should not be structured upon wrongs and nonsense as in the story. Indictments are texts that are based on reality, reinforced by evidence. Prosecutor's office does not hide evidence in favor of the defendant, falsify documents. Prosecutor's office is not impartial yet should embrace the principle of fairness and righteousness. Moreover, according to law, the office is obliged to collect evidence not only to my disadvantage but also to my advantage.
The claimant in its indictment has not acted like a prosecutor of the Republic. The attitude of Mr. Prosecutor resembles of a problematic doctor who worsens his patient's condition.
In my initial defense, presented to your court in the first hearing, I explained all facts as is, bit by bit, without hiding even minor details; presented the documents to your panel.
In my defense, I tried to explain to you that my profession was journalism; I exercised my profession for social justice, I didn't have any secret agendas like some others; I picked this profession to be the voice of the society. There are no power groups backing me. There has not been anyone who forced me, able to force me, to post the Tweet in question. The feeling that urged me to post that tweet is my love for this country.
Here, instead of myself, I especially defended journalism. I will continue to defend it under all circumstances. I am a journalist! However, if they asked me today what I would have picked instead of journalism, I would have said, 'becoming the prosecutor of this case'. I you're your attention, I'm not saying 'the office of prosecution'. Here, today, I would have wished to be the prosecutor of this case, in which I am a defendant.
Baris Terkoglu, my esteemed colleague, my prison mate and a comrade, presenting his defense in the first hearing, said, "If I am obliged to be a part in this court case, I would rather be the defendant than the prosecutor". I assume he uttered these words in consideration of the impact of logic and the negative ruling that the future held for today's events.
However, I think differently. "I need to be the prosecutor of this case". I need to correct the mistakes made, establish justice, praise journalism, and I need to do it in the name of the struggle for the benefit of the society, not of the current order. This is my character, this is my ideology, this is my debt to the society.
I need to do this as a Turkish son who believes in 'Revolutionism', 'Populism', 'Republicanism'. I need to mend what is broken, lift the fallen, eliminate practices that separate the society. I need to do this by granting the Right to who deserves it, by being just, by bringing in freedoms. In brief, I need to be the prosecutor, the judge, the clerk, the summoner of this court case, before we hand all over to history so that no other sons of this country go through what we have been through, to correct any erosion in the courthouses of this country if there is.
Esteemed judge and esteemed delegation,
In order to remind you of my first defense statement, I would like to go through certain events in chronological order.
- February 18: Our naval ship sent to Libya was shot by the rebel Hafter forces. Footage of the shooting, claims regarding a general and five soldiers [being killed] were shared by the local and international media as well as social media. Presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin made a statement about it.
- February 19: "Alumni of 1993 Association" had announced that their classmate O.A. was martyred and laid to rest without a ceremony.
- February 19: The same day Abdullah Agar shared the photo of our martyr from his social media account with thousands of followers and wrote, "a country sometimes rises (on the shoulders of) named and sometimes on the ANONYMOUS HEROES," in bold and capital letters.
- February 19: Same day the registrar shared the details of the location where our martyr S.C was laid to rest, with his name and surname, father's name, address and his photo on his social media account. In the following tweet, he used the same photos of our two martyrs, which I have also used, wrote their birth and death dates.
- February 19: Same day, a funeral was held for martyr O.A in Manisa. MPs, mayor, local authorities and hundreds of citizens participated in the funeral. Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) send a wreath with a banner that read, "Head of The Organisation." Photos were taken. The funeral was covered live.
- February 19: A website and a social media account called "Bize emanet" (Entrusted to Us) shared the names and surnames of our martyrs and published their photos.
- February 20-21: Another social media account called "Bordo Bereliler" (Maroon Berets) and "T.C Turk Ozel Kuvvetleri" (T.C Turkish Special Forces) also shared the names, surnames and photos of our martyrs. Hundreds of thousands of people liked these posts and shared them.
- February 22: President Erdogan said "We have a couple of martyrs in Libya," during a highway opening ceremony.
- February 22: Same day tens of thousands of people wrote "Who're these martyr," "A couple," "funeral without ceremony."
- February 22: Following President's announcement Yenicag daily published the story of the martyrs with Batuhan Colak's byline.
- February 22: Quoting Yenicag daily's story SOL and T24 web sites also published the story of the martyrs.
- February 22: Batuhan Colak removed the story from the news outlet's website and shared its original text on his social media account.
The summary of what happened on February 22 is as above. Hours after all this, at 23:06, I reacted against the terms "a couple of" and "laying to rest without ceremony," and tweeted "The name of Our martyrs who were martyred in Libya are called, in an underestimation, as "a couple of," and who was laid to rest without a ceremony, are S.C and O.A."
You cannot judge a book from its cover but the prosecutor's office drew such a conclusion from my use of case officer that it comes to a meaning that I marked MIT members by calling them case officers.
You do believe in this, I have nothing to say about that but you cannot possibly make the conscience in this courtroom believe in it.
The prosecution claims that I have I used the term "case officer / meslek memuru" deliberately to decipher the foreign missions of the MIT staff to make sure that the foreign intel agencies would know who he was.
First of all, such a grave and serious offense has to be proven by tangible evidence. Are intelligence and spying truly this easy? In other words, intelligence agencies have taken all the measures but a single journalist has exposed all the agency activities in Libya, without any reason, with a single word in his twitter account. Is this what the prosecution wants us to believe in?
I believe this to be a political case. If it had been a legal case, we would have been all released after the first hearing.
As I explained in detail also in the first hearing, my intention has never been disclosure. I only recalled our martyr, that's all.
Recently, Emre Cemil Ayvali, the AKP media relations officer made a confession in a tv program. "We engaged Kemalists and Feto members in a battle," he said. What he means by the battle is the plotted court cases. O these trials, esteemed members of the army, journalists, writers were put on trial and locked in jail. Murat Özenalp, Cem Aziz Çakmak, Kuddusi Okkır, Ali Tatar, Kaşif Kozinoğlu, Emcet Olcaytu, Türkan Saylan, İlhan Selçuk lost their lives then. I also stood trial in those cases.
Now, I ask here, dear chief judge, what kind of a battle is happening now that we are now put on trial? Are we under arrest as part of a settlement agreement?
Your court decided for the continuation of my arrest on June 24. As for the reasoning, it listed witness accounts, possibility of evidence distortion and possibility of escape. I ask the esteemed members of your panel here. What other evidence do you hold other than one tweet I shared that we are not aware of? If the only evidence is a tweet how can I distort it if I had already acknowledged it? Who is the witness against me? Why haven't we seen this person or heard this person in the first hearing? How did you deem a person who appears on tv for two days, came in to testify twice upon his own will, wrote in a paper for three days and with a permanent home and work address was intending to escape?
I would like to present here a photo of the person you think will escape. It is from Aug 5, 2013. The final hearing in Ergenekon trial. It's 05:30. The person next to me in the photo is journalist Fatma Sibel Yüksek and her husband. Although we were not under arrest, we've come with our suitcases, knowing we would be arrested. Which suspicion of escape are you talking about? Why am I under arrest?
Justice is like a lamp that keeps burning in a train car, being noticed only when the train enters a tunnel. It's a crime against humanity to prevent justice to reign with cunning and treacherous plots. If we do not stand against it altogether, we, as the society, inevitably become a part of the collapse of law and judiciary, the two pillars of the Republic. Silence, under these circumstances, is also a crime. If not a crime, it's a shameful act. Human can do without bread, water but not justice.
As Ugur Mumcu, my North Star, said, "Those who rule riding a lion, one day fall prey to that Lion."
I am a journalist. The person who is defined as a journalist is not one that writes as others please, flatters or sells his pen in fear. A journalist is one that stands with his people, shares the sorrows of the people and praises his flag greater than anything, who has internalized democracy and human rights. A journalist is the conscience of society.
Those who lead the country into a dark tunnel have never favored those that shed light throughout history.
Our struggle against those who organize fear, use oppression, violence, unlawfulness, justice as instruments will continue today as it did yesterday. I promise that we will win over these darknesses and imprisonments.
Just like Diogenes waving a lantern in the middle of the day, screaming "I'm looking for a man" at times of Great Alexander, I now look for justice in the courtroom with a lantern in hand.
And I do believe day, one day, talking about Turkish Justice, I would be referring to judges of the Caglayan courthouse instead of the "Judges in Berlin"... (HA/VK)
