Expert opinion prepared by P24 submitted to court by Deniz Nazlım's lawyer at the hearing. Ruling for further investigation, the court adjourned the case until 25 April

TANSU PİŞKİN, ANKARA

The first hearing in the trial of journalists Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar on the charge of “violating the Law no. 2911 on Meetings and Demonstrations” was held at the Ankara 71st Criminal Court of First Instance on 9 January 2024.

Journalists Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar were violently detained by the police as they were attempting to join a press statement in Ankara on 5 July 2022 concerning 16 journalists who had been imprisoned pending trial in Diyarbakır. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which decided not to prosecute the police officers who violently detained the three journalists, issued an indictment against Nazlım, Yükler and Tar in June 2023.

P24 monitored Tuesday's hearing, where journalists Yükler, Nazlım and Tar, as well as their lawyers Gulan Çağın Kaleli, Veysel Ok and Muhammet Musa Ünsal were present.

After reading out the indictment, the judge asked for defense statements against the charges.

Speaking first, Yıldız Tar said that on the day of the incident, they were there both to participate in the press statement for the arrested journalists and to report on the demonstration. Tar stated that they were detained after a violent assault by police in Ulus Pasajı arcade, before they could even make it to Ulus Square.

Tar said: “They pressed on my neck while I was being assaulted. A part of my tracksuit was pulled open and they hit me on the exposed regions of my body, their behavior sometimes amounted to harassment. Not only did they not issue a warning, but we only learned about the other demonstration at the square later, from the indictment. There are sometimes up to seven different press statements there and I follow them as a journalist. The police wanted to obstruct us through their own designs. I do not accept the charges. We have also filed a complaint for police violence and taken the maltreatment incident to the Constitutional Court.”

Deniz Nazlım: "The police officers were detained as part of another investigation"

After Tar, Deniz Nazlım delivered his defense statement. Nazlım stated that the police officers who had inflicted violence on them were the same officers who had been detained as part of another investigation.

Nazlım said: “This press statement was read throughout Turkey upon the Disk Basın-İş trade union’s call and there was a problem only in Ankara. The governor’s office had relocated all press statements from Kızılay to Ulus Square. I went there both to attend the demonstration as a citizen exercising his right to peaceful assembly and to report on it as a journalist. This falls under my freedom of thought. On my way to the square, the police stopped me and said, ‘no one can make a statement about terrorists.’ When we reacted, they tried to push us away. It was at this point that Sibel Yükler and Yıldız Tar were assaulted and detained.

“I had been assaulted too and pushed on to the street as I tried to cover the incident. Then they detained me with handcuffs behind my back while inflicting violence and uttering insults, on the pretext that I had blocked the road. When I said I was exercising my constitutional rights, they said, ‘There is no such thing as the constitution.’ They were the same police officers who had been detained as part of the Ayhan Bora Kaplan investigation. They disregarded the Constitution. The same police officers then broke up the LGBTI+ press statement on Tunalı Hilmi Avenue, they prevented that statement from going ahead using torture. The violence in Ankara that day began at noon and continued until 9 p.m. I am innocent.”

Sibel Yükler: "I witnessed the harassment"

After Nazlım, Sibel Yükler delivered her defense statement. Yükler stated that she had been a journalist since 2007 and regularly covered press statements at Ulus Square, which is the location designated by the governor’s office.

Yükler said: “We went to the square that day upon a call by the Disk Basın-İş trade union. Two weeks before, there had been a major demonstration at the same square against the censorship law. There are two main roads to the square. One is through Atatürk Boulevard and the other through the Ulus Pasajı arcade. We journalists were stopped by the police while heading towards the press statement through the arcade. Police officers, who are not judiciary officials, called the imprisoned journalists we were there to read out a press statement for ‘terrorists’ and started telling us ‘there is no such thing as the constitution.’ As we moved to disperse, they suddenly attacked us. What we experienced there was intense police violence.

“The police pushed the journalists towards the pavement. They claimed that we had occupied the pavement, but it was the officers themselves who occupied the pavement. As we were being detained along with Yıldız Tar, I witnessed the harassment they had to endure. Their clothes were torn off by the police. Deniz Nazlım was pushed towards the boulevard and detained there. When the images are examined, it will become clear what sort of terrible maltreatment we experienced.”

Lawyer Ok: "The court should hear the 23 officers who perpetrated violence"

Addressing the court following defense statements by the journalists, lawyer Veysel Ok said that Ulus Square was a designated official demonstration location and noted as such on the website of the Governor’s Office of Ankara and that the claim the demonstration was illegal was an attempt by the police to cover up their own crimes.

Presenting to the court the file on the criminal complaint the journalists had filed against the law enforcement officials, which was later dismissed by the prosecutor, Ok said: “The indictment is based on police reports. In the incident report, signed by 23 police officers despite it being a small incident, there are personal assessments, psychological analyses, and attributions of intent by law enforcement. Law enforcement has prevented journalistic activities and the right to peaceful assembly and demonstration, which is safeguarded by the Constitution.”

Ok requested that the court hear the 23 police officers who had inflicted violence and maltreatment and had signed the incident report. Ok asked the court to inquire of the Ankara Governor’s Office about whether the location of the press statement subject to the indictment was an officially designated area and whether a decision had been issued to ban the said press statement. Ok also requested the court to obtain full video footage of what happened on the day of the incident from the Ankara Police Department and to hear journalists who were there on the day of the incident as witnesses.

Lawyer Ünsal: "The police report is a case of forgery of documents"

Speaking after Ok, lawyer Muhammet Musa Ünsal cited the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments and presented the physical examination reports of his clients obtained after the assault by the police. Ünsal said: “Almost no part of the bodies of my clients was unharmed during the incident. I request the acquittal of my clients, whose constitutional rights were violated.”

Speaking last, lawyer Gulan Çağın Kaleli said: “There is one expression that is true in the police report and that is ‘planned operations.’ It is true that 18 journalists were detained back then [in Diyarbakır] in planned operations. On the day of incident, other journalists were detained in another planned operation. I was there at the press statement. All my clients were detained under torture before our very eyes. They were in no way reminded of their rights and when we wanted to see them, we were told we could not meet our clients because they had not been detained. The report the police officers filed is a case of forgery of documents.”

Expert opinion by P24 submitted to the court

Kaleli submitted the legal expert opinion by P24 to the court, saying, “We would like to present a very detailed expert’s opinion on the Law no. 2911.” The expert opinion was penned by lawyer Benan Molu, a lawyer registered with the Istanbul Bar Association No. 1 and who specializes in European human rights law and the law of individual application to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

Kaleli added: “There is a vicious circle that tries to make those who do not support it give up through judicial harassment.” Kaleli concluded her statement by requesting that all files in the dismissed criminal complaint against the law enforcement officials be added to the present case file and that the court obtain full video footage of the incident for the footage to be examined by an expert who is not a police officer.

Court accepts requests

In its interim ruling, the court granted defendants time to notify the court of their witnesses. Ruling to conduct further investigation in line with the defense lawyers’ requests, the court decided to inquire of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office about the criminal complaint filed by the journalists against the law enforcement officers, which resulted in the dismissal of charges; to inquire of the Ankara Police Department about the full camera footage of the incident; to have an expert examine the footage; to inquire of the Ankara Governor’s Office about whether protests, demonstrations, press statements in Ulus Square were banned on 5 July 2022, and whether a notification had been made regarding the press statement mentioned in the indictment. The next hearing of the trial is set for 25 April 2024.

Background of the case

Journalists Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar were detained after being assaulted and handcuffed behind their backs as they tried to join a press statement concerning 16 journalists who had been imprisoned pending trial in Diyarbakır, held upon the call of the DİSK Basın-İş labor union, in Ankara on 5 July 2022. Journalists who started gathering at the Ulus Ataturk Monument Square, where the press statement would take place, were first told to leave the square by the police as they “would not be allowed to make a press statement in the square.”

Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar, who were in a nearby area as they headed for the square, were told by the police to leave the area. The three journalists were assaulted and detained before they could leave the area. The journalists were released the same day, after giving their statements.

The incident report filed by the police and signed by 23 officers claimed that the journalists had “adopted a style of action and activity that is completely devoid of goodwill and fully focused on confronting security forces and deriving so-called victimization from it. This was clear from the attitude they displayed, and it was reflected in their body language”

The journalists filed a complaint against the police officers who assaulted them on allegations of “torture,” “insult,” “failing to report a crime,” “depriving a person of their liberty” and “causing bodily injury through surpassing the limit on the authority to use force” and accompanied by a Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) report that documented the assault they had suffered.

However, the prosecutor’s office decided not to prosecute the law enforcement officials, stating: “The police has exercised their authority in its basic form to neutralize the complainants who had been resisting the police and that there is no evidence presenting adequate suspicion to file a criminal case on law enforcement officials surpassing the limit to the authority to use force to commit the crimes of willful injury and torture or that they had been in abuse of duty.”

Upon the dismissal of their complaint, the journalists filed individual applications with the Constitutional Court on the grounds that the ban on torture, the freedom of expression and the freedom of association, as well as the ban on discrimination had been violated during their detention -- the last as another demonstration being held at the same time was given as the grounds for preventing the press statement in question.

In June 2023, about a year after the incident, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against Nazlım, Yükler and Tar on the charge of “violating the Law 2911 on Meetings and Demonstrations.” However, the indictment did not include the camera footage of the moment when the journalists were assaulted and detained.

The indictment was accepted by the Ankara 71st Criminal Court of First Instance.