TV Interview With A Torture Victim Brings Prosecution

Barış Pehlivan, a program producer at the TV channel CNN Türk, will be prosecuted for airing an interview with Nurettin Yılmaz to talk about the experiences of a member of the Parliament at the time of the military government. 

Pehlivan and Yılmaz are facing a trial for violating article 216 of the Penal Code, known as “provoking hatred and hostility”, and a 50 percent increase in the sentence, since the crime was committed through the media.

Witnessing torture will be tried on November 18

Eight months after the program was aired on July 24, 2007, prosecutor Ali Çakır demanded the prosecution of the two individuals in the indictment sent to the Bakırköy Chief Prosecutor’s Office. The first hearing will be held at the Bakırköy Court in Istanbul on November 18.

Murat Yetkin, columnist for daily Radikal, brought up the trial in the article he titled “İşkence yetmedi, anlatılmasına dava açtı” (As if torture is not enough, they sue those who talk about it), which was published on November 8.

Yılmaz will be prosecuted for having told the torture he experienced at the Diyarbakır Prison between the years 1980-84 and Pehlivan for providing the means to make this interview accessible to the public”.

Not the torture, but the witnessing it threatens the “public security”

Prosecutor Çakır directed his accusation for the reason that the TV program forced a section of the people to be hostile to the other section, was part of the destructive and separatist propaganda being conducted by the foreign powers and could lead to close dangers to the public security.

Yılmaz and Pehlivan will be prosecuted under articles 37, 216/1, 218 and 53, and face 4.5 years in prison.

Yılmaz describes the suit as “tragicomic legal scandal” and a typical case for the European Court of Human Rights.

Yetkin too thinks that this case shows Turkey has started going back in the area of the freedom of expression after the more positive period of 2002-2005. (EÖ/TB)