Journalist faces prison sentence for comments on chief prosecutor's relations with Erdoğan
The prosecutor visiting Erdoğan after getting married.
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Journalist Alican Uludağ had his first hearing in the case for "marking a counterterrorism official as a target" yesterday (December 2).
The case was filed after Uludağ's Twitter posts about a chief prosecutor who visited President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after getting married and was later appointed to the Court of Cassation.
When he was the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor, Yüksel Kocaman ensured that Selahattin Demirtaş, the imprisoned former co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), would stay in prison despite an ECtHR decision in 2018 for his release, said Uludağ. "This is how political dissidents are put in jail."
Shortly before a court in Turkey gave a verdict of release for Demirtaş, he was remanded in custody in another case, therefore his imprisonment continued.
At the hearing, Uludağ said that the main purpose of his tweets was criticism."
"As a legal reporter, I have always defended the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and the rule of law," he said. "It has been criticized that a chief prosecutor developed such a close relationship with the head of the executive power and then ran an investigation against his greatest political rival."
The investigation against him was also impartial as the "complainant is the chief of the prosecutor who filed the case," said the journalist.
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Article 6 of the Law on Fight Against Terrorism Those who announce or publish that a crime will be committed by terrorist organizations against persons, in a way that makes possible that these persons can be identified, whether or not by specifying their names and identities, or those who disclose or publish the identities of state officials that were assigned in the fight against terrorism or those who mark persons as targets, in the same manner, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to three years. |
As the investigation was opened against him, his spouse, who worked at the Ankara Courthouse, was assigned to a different place despite being eight months pregnant, Uludağ noted. "This investigation has been started for the purpose of repression, intimidation and 'teaching a lesson'."
The prosecutor demanded a prison sentence for Uludağ for "marking people who took part in the fight against terrorism as a target" as per Article 6 of the Law on Fight Against Terrorism.
Uludağ said the prosecutor submitted his opinion as to the accusations before the hearing started, which "once again showed that the defendants' statements of defense were not taken into account."
Giving time to Uludağ and his attorney to prepare their statements of defense, the Ankara 18th Heavy Penal Court announced that the next hearing will be held on February 3, 2021. (HA/VK)