Expression Interrupted

Journalists and academics bear the brunt of the massive crackdown on freedom of expression in Turkey. Scores of them are currently subject to criminal investigations or behind bars. This website is dedicated to tracking the legal process against them.

One journalist given jail term, two acquitted in the Demokratik Modernite case

One journalist given jail term, two acquitted in the Demokratik Modernite case

Files of Mehmet Nimet Sevim and Cihan Doğan were seperated in the case launched over articles in the issue 36 of Demokratik Modernite magazine

CANSU PİŞKİN, İSTANBUL

The eighth hearing in the trial of Demokratik Modernite magazine Managing Editor Ramazan Yurttapan, Agos newspaper Armenian pages editor Pakrat Estukyan and three others on the charge of “terrorism propaganda” was held at the İstanbul 30th High Criminal Court on 2 February 2024.

Estukyan and his lawyers were present at the hearing, which P24 monitored.

The prosecutor repeated their final opinion on the case they presented at the hearing on 14 December 2023 and requested sentencing for Pakrat Estukyan, Ramazan Yurttapan and Emran Emekçi for the impugned crime of “terrorism propaganda.”

“The article subject to the trial is a piece of historical analysis”

Delivering his defense against the prosecutor’s opinion, Estukyan said, “The prosecutor has considered the word ‘gerilla’ (‘guerilla’) to be a propaganda element. As a writer, I feel responsible towards the Turkish language. The word guerilla was used in the sense given in the Turkish Language Association’ dictionary. The article subject to the trial is a piece of historical analysis.”

Estukyan said, “I had no aim or intention to carry out propaganda” and said that he would not accept the deferment of the sentence should he be sentenced, and requested his acquittal.

The journalists’ lawyers Özcan Kılıç and Sercan Korkmaz requested the acquittal of their clients on the grounds that elements of the impugned crime had not formed.

Asked for his final statement, Estukyan said, “I do not believe I used a wrong word. I request my acquittal.”

The court ruled that the elements of the crime of propaganda in publications where the owner of the intellectual property is not known had formed and sentenced the managing editor of the magazine, Ramazan Yurttapan, to 1 year and 21 months of imprisonment.

The court acquitted Pakrat Estukyan and Emran Emekçi and ruled to separate the case files for Mehmet Nimet Sevim and Cihan Doğan, for whom detention orders had been issued.

The articles and some expressions in them which were published in issue 36 of the Demokratik Modernite magazine had been cited as evidence of the charge.

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