Below is a schedule of trials in Turkey where academics, journalists, and others are being accused of various crimes for speaking, writing or posting a message on social media.
12 - 16 March Monday - Hrant Dink murder trial
- The trial of 85 suspects implicated in the 2007 murder of Agos newspaper Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink will continue at the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court. This will be the 68th hearing in the trial. In this session, officers from the Istanbul Gendarmerie Intelligence will testify. Nine of the suspects are imprisoned. Those accused include Ogün Samast, the hit-man as well as the suspects who invited him to the murder; officers of the İstanbul and Trabzon Police Department, and officials from the Trabzon and Istanbul Gendarmerie Intelligence units as well as officers from the intelligence unit of the National Police Department. The state officials are accused of turning a closed eye to the plot to murder the journalist.
13 - 16 March Tuesday - Academics for Peace
- On 13 March, two academics from Galatasaray University, one from Istanbul University will appear before the Istanbul 37th High Criminal Court. On 16 March, three academics from Kadir Has University, one from Bahçeşehir University will be tried by the Istanbul 33rd High Criminal Court. All hearings start at 9.30 am. All of the academics who are suspects in this trial are being accused of "terror propaganda charges"
14 March Wednesday - MİT trucks
- The trial of journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül and opposition politician Enis Berberoğlu -- where they are charged with “aiding a terrorist organization while not being its member” in relation with a news report that appeared in Cumhurieyt will continue at the 14th High Criminal Court. The news report concerned photos that seemed to indicate that the Turkish intelligence agency MİT might have sent weapons to armed groups in Syria. This past week, the 16th Criminal Section of the Supreme Court of Appeals overruled a 5-year-and 10-month prison sentences given to former Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Chan Dündar and the newspaper’s Ankara Bureau Chief Erdem Gül. The court said Gül should be acquitted while Dündar should be retried -- however this time not on “exposing state secrets” but on the more serious charges of “acquiring secret state documents for espionage purposes,” a crime punishable with up to 20 years in prison.
15 March Thursday - Journalist Hayri Demir and Özgür Gündem editors on trial
- On 15 March, Mezopotamya News Agency reporter Hayri Demir will be tried by the Diyarbakır 5th High Criminal Court on charges of terror propaganda over tweets he posted which criticized Turkey’s military operation in Syria.
- Also on 15 March at 14:00 the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court will be trying journalists Faruk Eren, Ertuğrul Mavioğlu, Celal Başlangıç, Ömer Ağın, İhsan Çaralan, Celalettin Can, Fehim Işık, Öncü Akgül and Dilşah Kocakaya for taking part in a solidarity campaign to support the Özgür Gündem newspaper, which has been shut down.
16 March Friday - Cumhuriyet trial continues
- The seventh hearing in the trial of 20 suspects, 18 of whom are journalists and executives of the Cumhuriyet trial, will be heard on Friday at the Silivri Courthouse by the Istanbul 27th High Criminal Court.
In the previous session, on March 9, the two remaining Cumhuriyet journalists Ahmet Şık and Murat Sabuncu were released from prison. Two people -- Akın Atalay, the Chief Executive of the Cumhuriyet Foundation, remains in prison and a teacher accused of membership in a terrorist organization for allegedly posting a provocative tweet, remain imprisoned in the trial. The judge had said, “Captains are the last ones to leave a ship,” while announcing the ruling.
