“Kurdish journalists are constantly arrested or prosecuted on the basis of secret witness statements,” says lawyer

BİRCAN DEĞİRMENCİ, DİYARBAKIR

The tenth hearing in the trial of Yeni Yaşam newspaper reporter Hatice Şahin on the charge of “membership in a terrorist organization” was held at the Diyarbakır 9th High Criminal Court on 19 September 2022.

Şahin did not attend the hearing, which was monitored by P24, and was represented by her lawyer, Resul Temur.

At the start of the hearing, the prosecution reiterated its final opinion on the case, which was submitted to the court at the previous hearing held on 11 May, demanding that Şahin be convicted as charged.

“Secret witness statements are not sufficient for conviction”

Delivering a statement against the final opinion of the prosecution, lawyer Temur stated that Şahin was being tried solely on the basis of secret witness statements and said, “But since secret witness statements cannot be taken alone as grounds for conviction, my client was arrested to justify secret witness statements; some letters and documents confiscated during searches of her workplace were claimed to be terrorist organization documents.”

Temur added that journalists Semiha Alankuş, Esra Solindağ, Savaş Aslan, Mehmet Akdoğan and Kibriye Evren, who were also mentioned in the secret witness statements as involved in terrorist activities together with Hatice Şahin had been acquitted in their respective cases and that it was only Kibriye Evren who was still on trial. Temur said, “These acquittals alone show that witness statements are abstract and unfounded. I demand my client’s acquittal.”

The court announced its verdict after the statements were completed and sentenced Şahin to six years and three months of imprisonment for the crime of “membership in a terrorist organization.” The court ruled that Şahin continue to be under a ban on traveling abroad until the decision is finalized.

Commenting on the verdict, lawyer Şahin told Expression Interrupted that there was no legal justification for Şahin’s conviction: “The detention of my client and her name being mentioned in secret witness statements should not be considered separately from her journalistic activities. Kurdish journalists in particular are constantly being detained, tried and sentenced on irrelevant complaints or certain secret witness statements, which in fact shows a systematic treatment of the Kurdish press.”

About the case

Şahin was arrested along with 145 people on 9 October 2018 as part of an investigation into the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) in Diyarbakır and was released under an international travel ban 19 October 2018.

The indictment listed secret witness statements, telephone calls with news sources and Diyarbakır-İstanbul plane tickets as evidence for the charges brought against Şahin.