Detained Kurdish journalists Abdurrahman Gök, Dicle Müftüoğlu and Sedat Yılmaz will have hearings in December 2023 in Diyarbakır. MLSA invites all partner organizations to monitor these trials and calls for solidarity with Kurdish media.
MLSA Trial Monitoring and Legal Units will follow the hearings.
Live updates will be shared on Twitter (English and Turkish). For live updates please follow: MLSA Dava Takip (@MLSADavaTakip) / X
Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) prepared an information note about the upcoming hearings:
An indictment was filed against journalist Abdurrahman Gök, who was detained and arrested during a raid on his home on April 25 as part of an investigation conducted by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, on charges of "being a member of an illegal organization" and "making illegal organization propaganda". Mr. Gök is under detention for more than 200 days.
Gök said that he faced this case because he had taken photographs of the moment Kemal Kurkut was shot dead by a police bullet during a Newroz celebration in Diyarbakır in 2017. Gök said that five separate investigations were opened against him after the photographs of the murder were published and that he was subjected to serious pressure. Gök said that the Diyarbakır Security Directorate brought the news images from his social media accounts before the court "whenever it felt like it" and that he was being punished in this way.
Mr. Gök’s trial will be held in Diyarbakır 5. High Criminal Court on 5 December 2023 at 9:50.
MLSA Legal Unit and Trial Monitoring Unit will be in the courtroom.
Within the scope of the investigation initiated by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office Terror Crimes Investigation Bureau in 2020, 20 Kurdish journalists including Dicle Müftüoğlu and Sedat Yılmaz were detained in house raids organized by the police on April 29, 2023.
Dicle Müftüoğlu has been under pretrial detention since May 3, 2023. She was put in Sincan Women’s Detention Center in Ankara.
She is being charged with “founding and administring a terrorist organization” and “membership to a terrorist organization”. The Prosecution demands 37,5 years of prison sentence.
In the indictment of the secret witness statement, it was claimed that Müftüoğlu was in charge of the Mezopotamya Agency under the KCK Press Committee. The secret witness claimed that Müftüoğlu instructed to report news in favor of the organization. The secret witness had last confessed in a hearing on July 5 that he had been acting on behalf of the State.
The indictment states that Dicle Müftüoğlu participated in legal/illegal actions and events organized by political parties and non-governmental organizations close to PKK and KCK, but does not specify which parties and non-governmental organizations these were.
Müftüoğlu’s trial will be held in Diyarbakır 5. High Criminal Court on 7 December 2023 at 11:10.
MLSA Legal Unit and Trial Monitoring Unit will be in the courtroom. 
Mesopotamia News Agency Editor Sedat Yılmaz was arrested and detain under the same investigation with Dicle Müftüoğlu on April 29, 2023 by Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office.
Sedat Yılmaz has been under pretrial detention since May 3, 2023. He was put in Sincan High Security Prison Facility No:2.
He is being charged with “founding and administring a terrorist organization” and “membership to a terrorist organization”. The Prosecution demands 37,5 years of prison sentence.
The indictment stands on secret witness testimony. The testimony alleges that Mr. Yılmaz was making news articles in Dicle News Agency, Mesopotamia News Agency and Fırat News Agency to make propaganda of the terrorist organization and his journalism activities are within the scope of terrorism.
Yılmaz’s trial will be held in Diyarbakır 4th High Criminal Court on 14 December 2023 at 09:00.
MLSA Legal Unit and Trial Monitoring Unit will be in the courtroom.
