05 Feb 18 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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Dihaber reporters Erdoğan Alayumat (L) and Nuri Akman face up to 45 years in prison on terror and espionage charges.
All eyes turned to Erdoğan Alayumat when he appeared on the screen of the judicial teleconference system of a court in the southern province of Hatay on 2 February, beaming in from a prison 800 kilometres to the north on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. For someone facing up to 45 years in prison on terror and espionage charges, his face seemed serene and composed, his voice calm and collected.
“Had I been spying, there should be proof to show when, to whom and how I sent this information,” Alayumat told the judges of the Hatay second heavy penal court, displaying his journalistic reflex to remind the court that, like any news article, the principles of basic information shouldn’t be lacking in any indictment. It was a quick journalism 101 course to explain that his very job was the thing on trial. “I work as a journalist and report on anything I consider that has news value. I am also remunerated per piece by the agency,” he said.
Alayumat, a 30-year-old reporter working for the shuttered pro-Kurdish outlet Dicle Medya News Agency (Dihaber), was detained on July 15, 2017, alongside a younger colleague, Nuri Akman, who was assigned by the agency to spend a week shadowing Alayumat to gain experience. After spending 13 days in custody, Alayumat was arrested for “procuring confidential state documents for political or military espionage purposes” and “membership in a terrorist organization” and sent to prison, while Akman was released on probation. During the first hearing, the court ruled that Alayumat would remain in detention, and maintained the probationary restrictions on Akman until the next hearing on 25 April.
The taboo of reporting on aid to Islamists in Syria
Prosecutors in Turkey have been presenting journalistic activities as terrorism for a long time, especially since authorities began prosecuting pro-Kurdish outlets as part of the “KCK press trial.” All of the outlets targeted have been closed by successive emergency decrees following a coup attempt in July 2016. Dihaber, founded after its predecessor DİHA was closed by emergency decree in October 2016, was itself was shut down in August 2017. Their successor, Mezopotamya Agency, continues to be targeted with access bans on its website and trials against many of its journalists.
The authorities’ decision to pursue journalists as spies is based on-the-fly definitions of what facts are illicit and harmful to the “security of the state”. While working in Hatay, a multicultural province that borders conflict-ridden parts of Syria, Alayumat had been reporting on allegations that supplies were sent to Islamist groups by Turkey’s intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), as well as the construction of a wall on the Syrian border. Those reports and photographs – some of which were not even taken by him but downloaded from the Internet – have been presented by prosecutors as evidence of his “crime”.
“Erdoğan Alayumat’s detention is like the premise of the situation we are in today,” his lawyer Tugay Bek told Index on Censorship, referring to Turkey’s joint military operation with opposition fighters in Syria’s Afrin. “Alayumat was investigating how some of these groups [fighting in Syria] were trained and provided logistic supplies by the National Intelligence Organization. These claims, which were rumours and hard to assess back then, are today openly accepted without any need for concealment. They’re even saying to critics, ‘What is there to be against about?’ Alayumat was reporting on whether there was or not such a militia power. We are seeing today that there was,” Bek said.
Reporting on MİT’s activities have become taboo in the wake of the discovery of four trucks that were carrying weapons to Syria in January 2015. Far from denying allegations that the trucks belonged to MİT, the government said the weapons were destined for Turkmen groups fighting in Syria but that reporting the news represented a disclosure of state secrets. When footage and photos showing the content of the trucks were published a few months later by the daily Cumhuriyet, prosecutors were instructed to take strong action. The then-editor-in-chief, Can Dündar, was imprisoned along with Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül. Dündar, who faces up to 25 years in jail on espionage charges for publishing the story, has been living in Germany since his release by a constitutional court decision, but would face arrest if he returns to Turkey.
Former journalist and main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP) lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year for purportedly providing Cumhuriyet with the video that showed the weapons found in the trucks. The sentence was quashed by an appeals court, but Berberoğlu remains in detention during a retrial that began in December 2017.
In this context, Alayumat’s report on a storehouse which MİT was suspected of using to supply weapons by night and provide training to Syrian opposition groups by day represented high-risk coverage. However, for the charge of espionage to be valid, the prosecution must also show which groups benefited from the exclusive knowledge of the report, his lawyer said.
“If there is some sort of espionage, there should be a recipient. Although emails and WhatsApp messages are in the police’s possession, there is no evidence as to whom [this information] was sent to or where. [The prosecution] feels no need to prove the claims,” Bek said.
Alayumat told the court that everything he did was sent to a media organisation. He rejected the accusation that the photographs of the storehouse were to be used for espionage. “When you prepare a news report, you also need pictures. [People] brought me there, I took pictures and interviewed the people in the area. These pictures were taken for reporting,” he said.
He also complained about a serious factual mistakes in the indictment. The indictment alleged that he had joined “the youth structures of a terrorist organisation” during his university years, he said, indicating that this would have been impossible: “I left primary school in grade 4. I had to support my family. I finished primary school years later through distance education. As I didn’t have any university life, this statement is wrong.”
Police aim to beat murder confession out of young reporter
Reports that Alayumat was subject to ill-treatment and torture at a prison in the Mediterranean district of Tarsus made the news a few months after he was detained. His lawyer filed a complaint, upon which Alayumat was transferred to a prison on the opposite coast of the country. He was subject to diverse forms of punishment including solitary confinement and beatings, reports said.
Akman, a 23-year-old reporter who studies law at Dicle University in Diyarbakır, also suffered ill-treatment by police officers. His protests at his improper detention procedures and insistence at calling his lawyer were met with beatings, he said. “Nine-ten police officers battered me,” Akman said, adding that officers also forced him to admit that he killed two policemen in Hatay. “When I told them that I was an anti-militarist and against the killing of people, I was again subject to physical violence.” Akman said he was taken to a doctor for a medical report but brought back without being permitted to see the physician.
Akman, who despite some nerves before the hearing, smiled amiably and gave an impassioned defence to the court.
He said he intended to spend a week with Alayumat and earn a little money by doing reports. “There is an ongoing war on the other side of the border, so we wanted to report on how people living in bordering towns were affected,” he said, explaining that all the notes and pictures he took were intended for reporting. “I am studying law and I had to follow hundreds of cases when I worked as a judicial reporter in Diyarbakır over the course of one year. I am appalled by these accusations. I don’t accept them.”
To defend themselves, both Alayumat and Akman had to defend that their reporting was not a crime, which is the irony of the situation of journalism in Turkey. Journalists on trial face allegations which question the essence of their job. The expression “journalism is not a crime” has never been more significant for any other profession as it now is for journalism in Turkey.
“I have filed hundreds of reports,” Alayumat told the court. “If you can just look at them, you will see that they are nothing but news reports. What I have been doing is journalism.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”3″ element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1517838504081-b3f4f9d3-a9c1-8″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Dec 17 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”96575″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]This article is also available in Italian from Index partner Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso – Transeuropa
Kurdish reporter Nedim Türfent has been sentenced to 8 years and 9 months in prison on charges of “membership of a terrorist organisation,” with the court remaining deaf to substantial evidence of witness torture.
“They said they would show the ‘power of the Turk,’” lawyer Harika Karataş said after Türfent, a Dicle News Agency reporter, was sentenced on Dec. 15.
Karataş was referring to the story that led Türfent to being harassed and threatened by the authorities in his hometown of Yüksekova, in southeastern Turkey. In the footage Türfent revealed, a commander of special forces can be seen shouting “You will see the power of the Turk” to a group of detainees handcuffed behind their backs and forced to lie facing down on the ground.
“They whitewashed torture. They considered journalism to be a crime,” Karataş said.
Türfent’s case has stirred outrage among many of Turkey’s beleaguered independent journalists, made worse by the fact that 20 witnesses out of the 21 who appeared in court declared that their police testimonies were collected under torture and duress. These revelations turned the small courtroom in the remote eastern city of Hakkâri into a focal point, with press freedom facing another serious test far from the public eye.
Türfent, who had been under detention for more than 19 months before the hearing, was charged with both “membership of a terrorist organization” and “terror propaganda.” Dismissing repeated allegations of torture and ill-treatment, the prosecutor based his case on the witnesses’ initial testimonies to police and sought to convict Türfent for the former crime, which demands a higher sentence.
Still, defense lawyers and Türfent’s colleagues were cautiously optimistic before the fifth and final hearing of the case on Dec. 15. Twenty witnesses rejected the testimonies included in the indictment and only one witness upheld her testimony. The defense also brought credible evidence of contradictions in her testimony – enough to raise doubts about the veracity of her claims. Türfent himself also previously described to the court the death threats he received from the police when he was detained. The defense stressed that there was no evidence beyond reasonable doubt to convict Türfent on charges of “membership”.
However, the panel of judges thought otherwise. Announcing the verdict, the head judge said they had dismissed some of the initial testimonies but decided to retain others, regardless of the confessions that they had been taken under torture and duress. To justify the sentence, the judge referred cases to testimonies of witnesses who were minors during their interrogation and whose testimonies were not taken in the presence of a prosecutor and either a psychologist or pedagogue, as required by the Law on the Protection of Children.
‘A message to all journalists’
“No legal action was taken against the police, despite 20 witnesses confessing to having testified against Türfent under police pressure. One of the witnesses even told the court during the first hearing that police pulled two of his teeth with pliers in order to get a testimony from him,” Fatih Polat, the editor-in-chief of the left-wing daily Evrensel, told Index on Censorship. “Eventually, Türfent was handed a sentence [with terms] arranged by [the police].”
Polat, who has vocally criticized the case in a bid to draw wider public attention, said the verdict was aimed at intimidating the entire media community. “This verdict is also a message aiming to tell everyone doing journalism in this country: ‘Think carefully before you decide what you report on,’” Polat said.
“If we don’t stand against this unlawful ruling strongly enough today, we shouldn’t be surprised when the same happens to us tomorrow.”
Diyarbakır-based journalist Mahmut Oral, who monitored the trial on behalf of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey (TGS), also said that the case was a symbolic one. “Nedim worked in a difficult region during difficult times,” Oral said, referring to the military siege and curfews in Yüksekova.
Oral noted that the court didn’t act to investigate neither witnesses testimonies of torture nor Türfent’s account of ill-treatment when he was taken under custody. His legal complaints had been dismissed by prosecutors.
“This decision may well be legal for the Turkish justice system, but it is not a conscientious one,” Oral said. “This is why I consider this decision as an attempt to attack the rights of journalism.”
Decision to be appealed
The damage that a conviction would cause to journalism in the region and nationwide was repeatedly emphasised by Türfent himself. Türfent, who made his defense statements in Kurdish, has expressed no regrets about his work.
“I have written more than a thousand reports over seven years,” the young reporter said. “Some may not please the government. But it is not lawful to try to discredit these reports by imprisoning journalists.”
Türfent said he was now considered persona non grata for breaking his report on the special forces commander. “But if had the chance I would write the same report again.”
Türfent’s lawyers will now appeal the ruling at an appeals court outside of Hakkari, in the nearby province of Erzurum. They also plan to apply to the Constitutional Court against Türfent’s “long and unjustified detention”.
In his acclaimed novel A Season in Hakkâri, author Ferit Edgü describes Hakkari as a “mountain-top close to the sky.” The province is well-known for its bitter, inhospitable winter, and this winter now seems to have engulfed all rights and freedoms. “We want justice to wake up from its winter sleep,” Türfent said during his defense at court. Perhaps his wish will be echoed across the country.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Since 24 May 2014, Mapping Media Freedom’s team of correspondents and partners have recorded and verified more than 3,700 violations against journalists and media outlets.
Index campaigns to protect journalists and media freedom. You can help us by submitting reports to Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”2″ element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1513935154207-dc7c9f88-877b-4″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Dec 17 | Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”96900″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Thirty-one people, mostly Zaman journalists, appeared before a judge for the second time on 8 December on charges of aiding Turkey’s failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016 in a session held in the courtroom on the territory of the Silivri Prison Complex, which is currently home to some 150 journalists.
Most of the suspects were marking their 500th day in prison on the day of the trial. The world didn’t seem to care.
The crowds that attended the Cumhuiyet trial weren’t there. Only suspects’s families, several international observers and reporters from just two agencies and a local journalism organisation followed the hearing, which went on until after midnight. Among the defendendts were famous columnists as Şahin Alpay and Ali Bulaç.
Article 19’s representative posted a picture of the lonely courthouse with a tweet: “At the courtroom for #zaman trial, including several journalists and famous columnist Sahin Alpay. Apart from relatives of defendants there is hardly anyone here #journalism is not a crime.”
Zaman was the flagship newspaper of the Fethullah Gülen network, which has been declared public enemy number one since the attempted coup. Turkey claims that the Gülen network — with which the government had fallen out in 2012 — was behind the coup attempt. But foes of the government love to hate the Gülen movement, and maybe rightly so. At the peak of their power, prosecutors affiliated with the Gülen network conducted investigations into writers, secularist military officers and others, accusing them of plotting a coup against the then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Many, including journalist Ahmet Şık, were jailed for months, some even years, on what today are known to be mostly false charges.
The suspects, who already submitted their full defense statements in the first hearing in September, were allowed to speak in the second hearing. As is the case in most of Turkey’s politically motivated trials, the sense of a combination of personal tragedy and Turkey’s own traumas over the past decade — starting with growing polarisation, which some say lies in the heart of Turkish President Erdoğan’s successive election victories; unnamed regime change; a bloody coup attempt was almost palpable in suspect testimonies. Some were fearful, some resentful, some apologetic. Many said they regretted having written at Zaman, while few said they were proud.
Former Zaman writer Ahmet Turan Alkan’s defense statement was unapologetic. He spoke clearly, distinctly and with purpose. Looking at the judges, he said:”You can’t take 500 days stolen from the life of a person lightly. For this reason, I ask of you to forgive me, I am a little bit angry, I am enraged.”
Alkan stressed the violations of due diligence, which have also been pointed out by international observers, “You are more aware of this fact than I am: This case is the result of a vengeful ambition, of political grudge. The accusations against me are mind bogglingly severe , while the evidence department is empty.”
He continued: “Is it that easy in this Republic of Turkey, which is governed by rule of law, to steal 500 days of the life of a person on such light and facetious accusations? I will answer: Yes. Is it that cheap playing with my life, honor and professional reputation? The answer is yes. “
The former Zaman writers also chastised some of the other defendants, who in their statements said their affiliation with Zaman had been a mere result of the circumstances. “I wrote at Zaman for 20 years. I am a Zaman columnist. I wrote what I believed in. I have no political commitments to anyone, neither to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Fethullah Gülen, and I am proud of this. This will be the most meaningful legacy I will be leaving to my grandchildren and children. Because I don’t know if I will walk out of prison alive.”
He said he was angry at the state. “I was a nationalist in my youth, I wish that God will forgive me.” The journalist also had a message for the judges: “The government until today has never owned up to any of its mistakes. It’s always been bureaucrats who have had to pay the price.”
“I don’t expect to see compassion or justice from you. I just need you to put concrete laws to work,” he said, and finally completed his statement:“There are such courts that it is better to be the defendant in them than the judge.”
In stark contrast, former Zaman columnist and liberal academic İhsan Dağı — who was released pending trial earlier in the investigation and therefore testified via court-conferencing from Ankara, where he lives — was regretful. He said he agreed with the indictment, that the Gülen network was a terrorist organization and Zaman had become a mouthpiece for it. “I am accused because I wrote for the Zaman newspaper. I left the newspaper the moment when I understood that it had turned into a mouthpiece for FETÖ propaganda,” he said, which made him the only defendant to use the acronym used for the Gülen network by Turkish authorities. He said “FETÖ” was a “post-modern terrorist organisation,” hiding behind a legitimate face and using not its own weapons, but those of the state.
Other writers and columnists
Former Zaman columnist Lale Kemal, who was also let go after spending three months in prison, also testified via the court’s video conferencing system. She likened her ordeal to Kafka’s The Trial. She said: “There are three short paragraphs about me in the indictment. There is not a single piece of evidence against me.”
She said she was known professionally for her opposition to all military interventions, against that as a defense reporter, this has made her life difficult as she was not well liked by military officers.
“I think my being tried here has something to do with that hostility [some generals have felt towards me].”
She said she worked from home, and visited the Zaman building in Ankara maybe once or twice. “The claim that I am part of a hierarchical structure is out of reason.”
“How can I know about an organisation where the senior administration of intelligence organisations failed to monitor and prevent?”, she asked.
Lawyer Cengiz: Indicted for acting as lawyer for Zaman
Lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz, whose name is named only mentioned once in the indictment — on a page which lists the names of the suspects — said he was included in the investigation after filing an application with the constitutional court against the government’s appointing trustees to Zaman. Saying that throughout his career he had defended people of all creeds, Cengiz said his inclusion in the indictment was a blatant attack on the right to defense. He asked for his acquittal.
Şahin Alpay: “I was mistaken”
Columnist Şahin Alpay, who is 73 and who has complained of poor health, said he had been imprisoned for more than 16 months. Alpay said he was accused on the basis of seven articles published in the Zaman daily three or four years ago.
Alpay said the articles showed his commitment to parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, saying they were evidence in his favor, not against. “Everyone knows that I defend exclusion of violence from politics as a fundamental principle.“
“I sent in my articles via email and I never worked as an editor or executive at the newspaper. If there had been a judicial ruling about the Gülen network being a criminal organisation, I wouldn’t have written for Zaman for another day. If it had ever occurred to me that the members of this movement will one day participate in a coup attempt, I would have never written for Zaman,” he said.
“I was mistaken because I failed to see the dark and secret face of the Gülen movement, to that, I’ll admit. I am not a terrorist. I have always been against violence and terrorism all my life.”
He also said he was not an enemy of the government, but had merely criticized its policies after 2011.
No evidence against suspects
Many suspects in the trial — journalists and financial or advertising staff alike — said they weren’t sure what the indictment accuses them of. Mustafa Ünal, another former columnist, said “I have been under arrest for 500 days. I don’t know why I am under arrest. I am not a terrorist. I have written thousands of articles. I haven’t uttered a single word in favor of a coup. I am not a member of a terrorist organisation. If you claim the contrary, you should prove it.”
Columnist Ali Bulaç said: “That I wrote for Zaman is shown as an element of crime, there is no other evidence.”
Another Mümtazer Türköne, “Many people here don’t have any idea what they are accused of. The articles presented here can only be presented in my favor as each of them contained arguments against coups and for democracy.”
Both Bulaç and Türköne had been with Zaman for a very long time and both are well known writers.
İbrahim Karayeğen, a former editor said, “I don’t know what I am accused of. I can only make guesses. I worked as a night shift editor at Zaman for 12 years. I wasn’t an executive, I had no say on editorial policy. I understand that it is journalism on trial here. Journalism is not a crime,” he said.
Mehmet Özdemir: “I have been a journalist for 20 years. I haven’t done anything else. There is no evidence against me in the indictment, and nor can there be any. Because there is no crime.”
Defendants Şeref Yıldız, Onur Kutlu, İsmail Küçük and Hüseyin Belli, who were imprisoned for accepting old vehicles in return for premium payments owed by Zaman, also asked for their acquittal. Kutlu, Küçük and Belli were released in the court’s interim ruling.
The next hearing will be heard on 5 April 2018. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Since 24 May 2014, Mapping Media Freedom’s team of correspondents and partners have recorded and verified more than 3,700 violations against journalists and media outlets.
Index campaigns to protect journalists and media freedom. You can help us by submitting reports to Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Dec 17 | Academic Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”96838″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]A group of court reporters scurried along the halls of Istanbul’s massive Çağlayan Courthouse on the morning of 7 December, taking pictures of the tables showing the trial schedules of several high criminal courts to share them with other reporters make sure that none of the sessions of the day go unreported. There were too many trials, but too few reporters interested.
The journalists — all from the dwindling critical media of Turkey — were there to cover the trials of dozens of academics who will be tried by İstanbul’s 33rd, 34rth and 35th High Criminal Courts in the coming weeks and months. The academics are accused of having disseminated “propaganda on behalf of a terror organization,” when, in 2016 January, they signed a petition calling on the Turkish government to put an end to security forces’ operations in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country, where many alleged human rights violations — including deaths of civilians — took place under curfews declared in the region.
So far 148 people have been formally indicted, but a total of 1,128 academics signed the document, called the “Peace Petition” by its supporters. Nearly 500 of the “academics for peace” were expelled from university jobs with cabinet decrees issued under Turkey’s state of emergency declared after the failed coup attempt of July 2016. Nobody knows the exact number of those who left the country, to flee not the investigations against them and legal troubles as much, but the ever stifling and increasingly darker academic climate.
Only four academics — who were imprisoned between March and April 2016 for reading out the petition publicly– have so far been tried. The trials into the rest of the academics began on 6 December, with 10 academics appearing before a judge. One of them, Osman Olcay Kural, an academic from the Galatasaray University, has no regrets. “I am very glad that we signed that petition. I am thinking that we should have done it before,” he said, adding: “I will take this one step further. I don’t think anybody on that list regrets having signed the petition. If there are any, it has to be out of fear. They were frightened badly.”
And he is right. Some academics — although only a few — announced taking their signatures back after universities started investigating them back in early 2016. “And that, I respect,” Kural says. “People have children to take care of and bills to pay. It is the circumstances that have put them in this situation I regret.”
As the first academic to go on trial, Kural might have also inadvertently set the tone for the rest of the academic trials. The court hearing his trial rejected a request from Kural’s lawyer to try his client under Turkish Penal Code Article 301 — “denigrating Turkishness, the Republic and State agencies and organs,” which was the main accusation in the trial of the four academics who were tried earlier. The trial was adjourned until 12 April next year.
What about the others?
If there were 1,128 people who signed the petition, and if most of them are possibly all of them were investigated, then why have only 148 cases have been opened so far?
“Because the prosecutors chose to try them one by one. The text they are using in the indictments is the same; a single case could have been launched,” says Veysel Ok, a lawyer, who currently represents dozens of journalists and several of the peace academics. He, understandably, expects that number to go up in the coming days.
Attorney Ok says the “terror propaganda” and “denigrating Turkish state organs” accusations are vastly different in nature because a 301 conviction is better as it is not a terror crime. How can it be possible for a prosecutor to consider one in place of the other? “There is absolutely no legal explanation for this,” he says. “There is no incitement to terrorism or violence in that petition. For terror propaganda, such incitement is a requirement. To the contrary, the academics’ text wishes for peace. There is absolutely no legal basis for that accusation.”
Productivity in difficult times
“They are trying to make up a crime out of the petition,” agrees Emre Tansu Keten, a peace academic who was expelled from his position as a research assistant at Marmara University with a cabinet decree in February 2017. “This petition doesn’t fit either terror propaganda or 301.”
Keten, like the rest of the signers of the petition, will soon be on trial. However, like Kunal, he is unfazed by the government’s reaction. “As a political individual, I can’t say I was really shocked or that I went through an emotional breakdown when I was expelled,” he laughs.
Out of his university job, he keeps busy, “I work at a publisher as an editor, I am continuing on with my academic studies. I do a lot for [Turkish education professionals’ union] Eğitim-Sen, there is much to be done there.”
For many “peace academics” — and others under pressure in Turkey, such as journalists or rights activists — the unusually difficult times the country is going through need not put life on hold. So much has happened over the past few years: alliances forged by the government that were never expected to be broken have shattered; ministers have been listed as defendants in foreign courts; hundreds of civil servants, judiciary members, soldiers, police officers have been expelled or jailed; scores of President Erdoğan loyalists have fallen from grace and heads of mayors from the government party have rolled (of course, figuratively speaking, at least for now) over the upsetting results of a referendum that the government actually won. Yet, none of this has stopped the core of opposition in Turkey and people like Keten — who is also busy these days working on the final chapters of his doctoral thesis — have continued their prolific work.
When the tide turns, something good might even come out all of this.
“There has been a search for an alternative academia for more than a decade in Turkey,” Keten says. “We, the academics of solidarity, are teaching alternative classes in Ankara, İzmir and Eskişehir. There are other journals and serious publishing houses where we can write and be published.”
“To a certain extent, these policies of intimidation have worked,” he added. “Many [who signed the] peace petitions have left the country, but there is also a group which has, over the past two years, created a foundation for a struggle. There are those who have stayed, and who are working to change things. And that, gives, hope.”[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”96839″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Since 24 May 2014, Mapping Media Freedom’s team of correspondents and partners have recorded and verified 3,597 violations against journalists and media outlets.
Index campaigns to protect journalists and media freedom. You can help us by submitting reports to Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1512654177455-eea84219-c45f-10″ taxonomies=”55, 8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
