A father and son running a local newspaper have been facing one trial after another for years

Journalist Özgür Boğatekin at the courthouse for a hearing. (Photo: Özgür Boğatekin/Facebook)

Three journalists were acquitted of charges in two separate cases and a new case was filed against a journalist for "terrorist propaganda" in the last two weeks, according to bianet's Media Monitoring Database.

One of the acquitted journalists was Özgür Boğatekin, who runs a local newspaper together with his father. Over the years, both of them have stood trial for various charges, from "terrorist propaganda" to "insulting state officials."

Also, courts imposed an access block on two news portals and several online articles about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son-in-law Berat Albayrak and his family members.

Here is a summary of the legal interferences with the news media between April 5 and 18:

Never-ending trials of two local journalists

Hacı Boğatekin and his son Özgür Boğatekin run a local newspaper in the Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Adıyaman.

A journalist of 45 years, Hacı Boğatekin founded Gerger Fırat newspaper in 1992 after having worked as a local reporter for several outlets, including the state broadcaster TRT.

During his career, Boğatekin stood trial in more than 160 cases, some of which are still ongoing. Because of his reports and articles, he was sued by ruling party politicians, threatened, targeted in an armed assault, attacked by municipal workers and served prison time.

In 2014, he was sentenced to pay compensation for immaterial damages in two separate cases because of an article criticizing the authorities for taking away the mobile toilet of a village school for an opening event attended by the Adıyaman governor.

"Isn't a WC needed for the asses of Bodin [village] students?" he wrote in the article subject to the trial.

His son Özgür Boğatekin was also sentenced to 1 year and 15 days in prison for his article about the same issue. He was put in prison in August 2020 but released shortly after as part of a sentence reduction law aimed at reducing the prison population due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

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In 2016, Hacı Boğatekin was given a judicial fine because of the same article. He later made an individual application to the Constitutional Court, which ruled in late 2017 that his freedom of expression was violated.

Another striking case against Hacı Boğatekin was filed against him in 2008 when he called Fetullah Gülen, a US-based Islamic group leader, "Feto" in an article.

Now held responsible for the 2016 coup attempt and officially designated as a "terrorist ringleader," Gülen was allied with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the time, with thousands of his followers in state institutions, including the security forces and the judiciary.

Boğatekin served more than three months in prison at the time and faced up to 18 years in prison for writing about a prosecutor who he said threatened him for calling Gülen "Feto." He was subsequently given a five-year prison sentence in 2010. 

Ironically, Gülen's group has been officially dubbed as "FETÖ," or the "Fetullahist Terrorist Organization," since mid-2016.

In 2009, Hacı Boğatekin was attacked by municipal employees in Gerger while he was filming a fire in the municipal dump. 

Because of his articles, he was also sued by two Kurdish politicians of the AKP, Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat and Mehmet Metiner, in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

Following his father's footsteps, Özgür Boğatekin has also stood trial in several cases and served months over the past decade. The charges he faced include terrorist propaganda, insult and calumny.

On April 14, he was acquitted of calumny in a case concerning a 2011 news report titled "Allegation of torture at the gendarmerie station." 

Two news portals were banned

Courts blocked access to JinNews on April 6 and Mesopotamia News Agency on April 15.

A Diyarbakır judgeship blocked access to three web addresses used by Jinnews, "jinnews16.xyz", "jinnews17.xyz", "jinnews18.xyz." 

Jinnews ("woman news" in Kurdish) is a news outlet with an all-women team of editors and reporters and exclusively focuses on women's issues. It is published in five languages — Turkish, Kurdish, Zaza language, English and Arabic.

Shortly after an access block was imposed on the "mezopotamyaajansi29.com" website of Mesopotamia Agency (MA) on April 14, another access block was imposed on "mezopotamyaajansi30.com" one day later.

News portals use different web addresses, usually adding numbers to their names, in order to bypass court bans.

Censorship of reports about Albayrak family

A judgeship blocked access to several articles about three members of the Albayrak family, which has close ties to the government, on the ground of "violation of personal rights."

The banned articles were about Berat Albayrak, the former finance minister and the son-in-law of President Erdoğan, his brother Serhat Albayrak, the CEO of the pro-government Turkuvaz Media Group, and Hafize Şule Albayrak, Serhat Albayrak's spouse and an academic at Marmara University Faculty of Theology.

Some of the banned articles concerning Berat and Serhat Albayrak were about the Paradise Papers leak. A news article published by diken.com.tr and tweets posted by the accounts of news portals Deutsche Welle Türkçe, Evrensel newspaper and Yurt newspaper have been affected by the block order. 

The judgeship also ordered an access block on a report on a compensation lawsuit filed by Serhat Albayrak against Evrensel newspaper, a report on the hearing of Pelin Ünker, whom the Albayrak family sued for her reports about Paradise Papers, an article compiling column articles criticizing the media over its silence on Berat Albayrak's resignation as the finance minister and a report about the allegations that the state-run broadcaster TRT allowed the Turkuvaz group to use its data for free.

The judgeship also blocked articles about a column article by Hafize Şule Albayrak titled "On the similarity of the secularist missionaries and the ISIS preachers."

The trial of two journalists for covering the refugee influx

Put on trial for "entering a forbidden military zone" in Pazarkule in Turkey's northwestern province of Edirne in 2020 while reporting on the situation of refugees heading towards the border with Greece, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) reporters Naci Kaya and İdris Sayılğan have been acquitted.

Video filmed 16 years ago was cited as crime evidence

Journalist Oktay Candemir is charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" by a new indictment.

With the slogans chanted in the videos from 16 years ago cited as criminal evidence, the journalist will appear before the judge as the Van 5th Heavy Penal Court has accepted the indictment.

(VK)