DENİZ TEKİN
In the trial of 18 journalists in Diyarbakır, the court was unable to access the minutes of the month-long police search of the Ari Yapım production company, which the prosecutor listed among the main evidence, and which the court said witnesses were made to sign unlawfully. It was decided to request these minutes, which were not in the case file, from the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.
The third hearing of the lawsuit filed against 18 journalists facing up to 15 years in prison for "being a member of a terrorist organization" on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organization" for following news reports and preparing and presenting discussion and cultural programs for television channels broadcasting abroad was held at Diyarbakır 4th High Criminal Court.
Journalists Serdar Altan, Elif Öngür, Rohat (Zeynel) Bulut, Lezgin Akdeniz, Mehmet Şahin and their lawyers Resul Temur and lawyers Fatih Aydın, Ruşen Seydaoğlu, Canan Atabay and Bahar Oktay from MLSA Legal Unit attended the hearing. Representatives of the Dicle Fırat Journalists' Association (DFG) and Mesopotamia Women Journalists' Association (MKG), lawyers from the Amsterdam Legal Clinic, MLSA's Trial Monitoring Unit and journalists watched the hearing.
At the beginning of the hearing, the Presiding Judge said that the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office had not responded to the request to send a copy of the minutes of the month-long searches at Ari Yapım Prodiksiyon to the court. The Presiding Judge stated that for this reason, a separate writ was not written for the hearing of the witnesses who signed the search reports.
Serdar Altan, Elif Öngür, Rohat (Zeynel) Bulut, Lezgin Akdeniz, Mehmet Şahin took the floor in turn and stated that they repeated their previous defenses and asked for the ban on leaving the country to be lifted and for their acquittal.
Taking the floor for the opinion on the merits, the prosecutor requested that the deficiencies in the case file be eliminated.
Lawyer Temur: Witnesses who were not present at the search were made to sign
Lawyer Resul Temur reminded that the file on Berivan Karatorak, the owner of Ari Yapı production company, who is a suspect in the investigation file, was separated from this case file. Informing that the minutes of the 30-day searches at Ari Yapı were added to Karatorak's file, Temur said that the search minutes can be accessed upon request. Temur also pointed out that the witnesses did not participate in the 30-day searches at Ari Yapi and that they knew that these minutes were signed by the witnesses in one go. Temur demanded that his clients are journalists and that the ban on them traveling abroad should be lifted so that they can easily carry out their professional activities. Other lawyers then took the floor in turn and asked for the deficiencies in the case file to be eliminated.
Journalists' confiscated digital materials to be returned
Following the defenses, the court took a short break and decided to request a copy of the case files filed against Kadir Bayram, Mehmet Şahin, Mehmet Ali Ertaş, Zeynel (Rohat) Bulut in other courts. The court decided to write to the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and the Anti-Terror Branch Directorate to send a copy of the minutes of the month-long searches at the Ari Yapım production company to the court. The court ruled that a summons be sent to the addresses of the witnesses whose signatures appear on the search reports when they arrive in order for them to be heard in court. The court ordered the return of the confiscated digital materials of the defendants and lifted the obligation of Esmer Tünç, Kadir Bayram and Mehmet Yalçin to sign in at the police station as a condition of judicial control.
The court decided to continue the travel ban on 18 journalists and adjourned the trial to May 9, 2024.
What happened?
Production companies Pel Yapım, Piya Yapım and Ari Yapım operating in Diyarbakır were raided on June 8, 2022 on the allegation that they were shooting programs for Sterk TV broadcasting in Belgium and Medya Haber TV broadcasting in the UK. The homes and workplaces of many journalists and media workers were also searched by the police. Police searches of production companies lasted for a month. The police presented the news materials seized during the searches as "organizational evidence" and served their images to the press.
Serdar Altan, Co-Chair of Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG), Jınnews Director Safiye Alagaş, Xwebûn Newspaper Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Ali Ertaş, Mezopotamya Agency (MA) editor Aziz Oruç, journalists Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Ömer Çelik, Mazlum Doğan Güler, İbrahim Koyuncu, Neşe Toprak, Elif Üngür, Abdurrahman Öncü, Mehmet Şahin, Lezgin Akdeniz, Suat Doğuhan, Ramazan Geciken and press worker Remziye Temel were arrested on 16 June 2022 on charges of "being an illegal organization member". Journalists Esmer Tunç, Mehmet Yalçın, Gülşen Koçuk, Kadir Bayram, Mehmet Yalçın, Gülşen Koçuk, Feynaz Koçuk and İhsan Ergülen, who took part in a street interview, were released on judicial control conditions.
Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office prepared a 728-page indictment against 18 journalists and media workers for "illegal organization membership". The files against journalists Safiye Alagaş, Gülşen Koçuk, Feynaz Koçuk and İhsan Ergülen were separated.
Journalists' news programs, SSI records, phone calls with colleagues, secret witness testimonies, news archives, books they read, records of their entries and exits abroad, social media posts, press statements they attended, news they wrote and interviews they gave to the press were included in the indictment as "criminal evidence".
In the first hearing of the case held at Diyarbakır 4th High Criminal Court on July 11 and 12, 2023, 15 journalists and press workers were released after 13 months in detention. The court issued a travel ban for the released journalists.
