Court to examine whether Bloomberg journalists made profit through report on currency crisis

Over the past week, hearings of seven cases against eight journalists were held and two journalists were acquitted of "insulting the president" and "insulting a public official," according to bianet's Media Monitoring Database.

Other charges against journalists include "disrespecting the religious beliefs of a group," "information-based market manipulation" and "membership of a terrorist organization."

Here is this week's summary:

The trial of Bloomberg reporters and 36 people

Two reporters for Bloomberg, Kerim Karakaya and Fercan Yalınkılıç, published an article about the Turkish lira's nearly 16 percent loss against the US dollar in a single day in August 2018.

Citing "sources with knowledge of the matter," the report said that the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) had scheduled a meeting with banks to discuss the country's "biggest currency shock" since the 2001 crisis.

After the BDDK filed a complaint regarding the report, prosecutors indicted the reporters, as well as 36 other journalists, economists and others who commented on the article on Twitter, for "trying to weaken the economic order and stability of the state." 

The journalists are charged with "information-based manipulation" as per Article 107/2 of the Capital Market Law and failing to fulfill the "obligation of notification" of a financial crime as per Article 102.

At the first hearing in September 2019, the reporters said that they had been reporting on the economy and the charges against them were "tragicomical." 

"What this report said, in brief, was that the value of the US dollar increased by 24 percent on that day. We also wrote that the BDDK would meet with bank executives at the weekend. We did not gain any benefits from this report. The BDDK did not refute our news after all," Karakaya had said.

Yalınkılıç had noted, "On the day when the report was made, we went to banks and wanted to withdraw foreign currency ... When we wanted to withdraw money, they told us that they could do the transaction the day after."

The court had rejected the acquittal of any of the defendants.

At the second hearing in January, the court heard the defendants who had not proffered at the previous hearing. It issued an arrest warrant against four defendants who did not attend the hearings and adjourned the hearing to 8 May 2020.

At the fourth hearing on October 23, 2020, the court appointed an ex officio expert to the file and ruled that it shall be separately examined whether the elements of the offense charged were constituted by each defendant. In other words, an expert will now examine whether each defendant "has profited or not '' because of the report published on Bloomberg.

The court ruled that the execution of warrants against six defendants should be awaited. The next hearing will be held on February 26, 2021.

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Cases for "insulting the president"

Over the past week, hearings were held for three journalists charged with "insulting the president."

Necla Demir, the former grant holder of Gazete Karınca news site, has been acquitted. She stood trial because of two news articles on the website titled, "From the Wikileaks documents: Erdoğan is dragging the country into a civil conflict" and "Red Hack members spoke: Why did they hack Albayrak? [Berat, the son-in-law of the president and the energy minister at the time]." 

The cases against Erk Acarer, a journalist living in Germany, and Cem Şimşek, the former managing editor of Evrensel newspaper, have been adjourned.

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'Degrading religious values'

Journalist Hakan Aygün was remanded in custody on April 4 over his tweets on a fundraising campaign launched by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Erdoğan had asked citizens to put money into a bank account, giving an international bank account number (IBAN).

In a tweet he posted on March 31, Aygün made a wordplay on IBAN and "iman," which means "belief" or "faith" in Turkish and mostly used in a religious manner. He wrote about an imaginary "IBAN section" of Quran, saying those who "IBAN" and those who "don't IBAN" would be "separated in the afterlife."

Having been charged with "publicly degrading religious values," Aygün was released from remand after the hearing on May 6 as the court concluded that there was no suspicion of escape. 

At the hearing on October 27, Aygün stated that the social media post cited as criminal evidence in the indictment was not posted by him. Handing down its interlocutory judgment, the court ruled that the examination of digital materials should be awaited in order to determine whether the tweet in question was posted by Aygün.

The next hearing will be held on January 19, 2021.

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Other trials

Journalist Hazal Ocak has been acquitted of insulting a public official in the case over an article about Berat Albayrak, the finance minister and the President's son-in-law. 

In the case against Mazlum Dolan, a former reporter for the Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which was shut down by a statutory decree following the 2016 coup attempt, the court has ruled that if there is a request for the extension of the prosecution, this request shall be examined and, if not, the case file shall be sent to the prosecutor's office for the preparation of the opinion as to the accusations. The next hearing will be held on December 8.

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