Journalist Şehriban Aslan and two others accused of violating privacy laws for reporting on the alleged misuse of public vehicles were acquitted in the second hearing of their trial
DENİZ TEKİN
A Turkish court has acquitted JINNEWS journalist Şehriban Aslan and two individuals accused of being her sources in a case related to her reporting on alleged misuse of official vehicles at the Diyarbakır Provincial Directorate of Family and Social Services. The trial, held at the Diyarbakır 16th Criminal Court of First Instance, was based on charges of "violating the privacy of private life" following the publication of video evidence in JINNEWS.
Aslan did not attend the hearing, but the other defendants and their lawyers were present. The defendants denied the charges and requested acquittal.
An attorney representing Deputy Directors Burhanettin İncedursun and Ayşe Nur Baysal, who had filed the complaint, argued that a report by the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office found no evidence of vehicle misuse. The lawyer, Muhammed Can Baysal, insisted that the defendants should be convicted for harassment, defamation, and violation of privacy.
Defense attorney Sertaç Eke countered that his client, Yusuf Erdener, had recorded the footage as evidence of a public offense, not to violate privacy. Defendant Remzi Atalay, a lawyer himself, criticized the charges, calling the indictment baseless and stating that, in his 15 years of legal practice, he had never encountered such a case.
The prosecutor recommended acquittal, arguing that the legal elements of the alleged crime were not met. The defense lawyers supported this stance, while the plaintiffs’ lawyer opposed it, claiming that JINNEWS was a "PKK sympathizer agency" and demanding the defendants be punished.
The court ruled that the legal criteria for the alleged offense were not met and acquitted all defendants.
Background
The case stemmed from a JINNEWS article titled "The Provincial Directorate of Family and Social Services is exempt from austerity measures!", which alleged that deputy directors at the Diyarbakır Family and Social Services Directorate used government vehicles for personal purposes. The report also claimed that employees who objected to the practice were reassigned to other positions.
Following the publication, the deputy directors named in the report filed a criminal complaint against Aslan and those who had provided the footage. The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office then indicted Aslan, along with Remzi Atalay, a lawyer at the Family and Social Services Directorate, and Yusuf Erdener, a director at the same institution, on charges of "violating privacy."
