After nearly eight years of legal proceedings, a Turkish court has acquitted journalist Hayri Demir of “membership in a terrorist organization” but sentenced him to 2 years, 9 months and 22 days in prison for “terrorist propaganda through the press.” The charges were based on news materials found on an external hard drive.
The eighth hearing in Demir’s trial was held at the 15th High Criminal Court in Ankara. Demir and his lawyer Ercan İpekçi were present in the courtroom, along with Turgut Dedeoğlu, the president of the press union DİSK Basın-İş, and an observer from the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA).
“I’m being prosecuted for journalism,” Demir told the court in his defense statement in response to the prosecutor’s final opinion. “I have attended all the hearings. I am being tried solely for my journalism. During my time in Syria, I engaged only in professional reporting and no other activity.”
The charges stemmed from journalistic content found on a hard drive, which authorities claimed linked Demir to a terrorist organization. Demir, a reporter known for his work on the conflict in Syria and Kurdish issues, had long maintained that the evidence was tied to his reporting and not to any organizational affiliation.
The court acquitted him of the more serious charge of “membership in a terrorist organization,” but convicted him of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization through the press,” sentencing him to nearly three years in prison.
Demir and his legal team announced that the verdict will be appealed at a regional appellate court.
The case is one of many in which Turkish journalists have faced terrorism-related accusations over their reporting on sensitive political and regional topics, drawing scrutiny from international press freedom organizations and the Council of Europe.
