Turkey: No Relief For Journalist Reyhan Çapan As Court Adjourns 20th Hearing Of Bogus Terror Trial
Location: Turkey, Istanbul
Date: November 30, 2021Available in: 🇹🇷 Türkçe
Photo Credit: AFP/Ozan Köse
Legal ordeal for Özgür Gündem’s former managing editor Reyhan Çapan continues as her trial was adjourned yet again without significant progress. The 20th hearing of the case against Reyhan and other journalists on fabricated terror charges was held on Tuesday at the İstanbul 2nd High Criminal Court and adjourned till March 26, 2022 as court awaits defendants’ arrests. The journalists face trial for charges based on reports published in the newspaper that has since been forced shut.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism strongly condemns the continued legal harassment of the journalists. We have observed the persistent weaponization of Turkey’s anti-terror laws to silence critical journalists. We remind the Turkish authorities that journalism is not a crime and cannot be treated as such in any democracy.
At the hearing on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, the prosecutor sought a jail term up to 15 years besides a judicial fine for Reyhan. The journalist was represented in court by her lawyer Özcan Kılıç.
The journalist has been indicted on 18 counts pertaining to “spreading propaganda”, “printing or publishing broadcasts of terrorist organizations” and “spreading propaganda through the press”. All 18 the indictments, which cite various reports published in Özgür Gündem between 2012 to 2015 as evidence against the journalist, have been combined and accepted for hearing by the İstanbul 2nd High Criminal Court.
The trial, which has gone on for years, met more delays on Tuesday as the court adjourned the hearing yet again, deciding to wait for the execution of arrest warrants issued for other defendants Bülent Toraman, Cimşit Atılgan and Nebahat Akman. The previous hearing, held in June this year, was also adjourned on the same grounds.
Özgür Gündem was shut down by the Turkish government in August 2016. Reyhan faces two other lawsuits based on her journalistic work. In 2019, she was handed a prison sentence of three years and nine months along with the newspaper’s former co-editor-in-chief Eren Keskin for similar terror-related charges. Another case against her on charges of insulting the president and spreading terror propoganda cites a report published in the newspaper in September 2015 titled “The palace gone insane”. The newspaper’s former co-editor-in-chief Hüseyin Aykol and other staffers are co-defendants in the case based on the report about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his palace.
The persistent legal harassment of journalists in Turkey is extremely concerning. The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns the continued persecution of Reyhan Çapan and other journalists and demands that the unfounded charges against them be immediately dropped. In this year alone, we documented more than 90 cases against women journalists. The charges against the journalists in nearly all of these cases were based on their reportage and social media posts. It is evident that legal harassment of journalists is commonly employed in Turkey to gag the media, often through the country’s anti-terror laws. The CFWIJ calls on the Turkish authorities to end the legal harassment of journalists. Such attempts to curb the freedom of the press and intimidate and silence critical voices cannot be tolerated in any democracy. Journalists must feel safe and free to hold power to account without fear of government retaliation.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism closely monitors the incidents in Turkey with great concern. Since March 8, Women's Day, police violence against women journalists increasingly continues in the country. As the coalition, we urge the Turkish state to provide a free environment for journalists. Following the news is our most fundamental democratic right to report. We demand the immediate release of our detained colleagues. Journalism is not a crime. Journalism cannot be prevented.
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