Turkey: CFWIJ Welcomes The Acquittal Of Journalist Buse Söğütlü
Location: Turkey, İstanbul
Date: February 3, 2022Available in: 🇹🇷 Türkçe
Journalist Sultan Eylem Keleş was sued for reporting workers’ protest of private company BİMEKS in September 2020. She was charged with ‘resisting, preventing, and insulting public officials on duty. However, she was briefly detained when she was following the events of the BİMEKS workers. The first hearing of the case against Sultan will be held on September 13, 2022, in İstanbul. The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) denounces legal harassment against journalists. We demand the journalist's case be dropped immediately. Journalism is not a crime.
The journalist, affiliated with the newspaper Gazete Yolculuk, appeared before the İstanbul 23rd High Criminal Court to defend herself on charges of insulting a public official and disclosing the identity of a counter-terrorism official. The evidence against her includes a Twitter post she made, commenting on a former judge of Istanbul 37th High Criminal Court, Akın Gürlek.
An investigation was launched against the journalist, formerly associated with Cumhuriyet Newspaper, after her tweet. In her post, Buse quoted an article published at Gazete Yolculuk, where she now works, and wrote “If Hitler came out of his grave and (…) sat in his chair, more or less, he would use the same phrases as well. Professional ethics and all aside; one should carry the weight of the chair he is sitting on”. Buse was referring to an instance where the former judge had ordered lawyers on trial “to stop talking to each other or that he would change their seats”.
The journalist, through this post, was claimed to have “put the aforementioned judge in the line of a target of an armed terrorist organization DHKP-C and other marginal leftist organizations”. Moreover, she faces up to 13 years in prison on charges of “disclosing or publishing the identity of a public official on anti-terrorism duty and identifying them as targets” and “being affiliated with an armed terrorist organization”.
Although her travel ban was lifted in previous sessions, the police did not return Buse’s passport. The journalist was accepted into the ECPMF's JiR fellowship program in Leipzig on August 2, lost her right to participate in the program because her request for the return of her passport was denied.
Today, the prosecution repeated the opinion of Buse that it gave to the court on September 14, 2021, and requested that the journalist be sentenced. Following the opinion, Buse stated that she had made her defense previously and said that she had nothing to add. The court acquitted the journalist.
The CFWIJ welcomes the acquittal of Buse. However, filing a criminal complaint again represents that policies of intimidating and silencing journalists are solely applied against Buse. These attempts at free press and freedom of expression are unacceptable.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.
If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.