SAME COURT SAME JOURNALIST DIFFERENT DECREES

BIA News Center
posted on July 25 2007
Turkey

After dismissing a case against journalist Bogatekin three months
earlier, the same prosecutor’s office in Gerger, south-east of Turkey,
has started a second trial against the same journalist under Article
301. His trial is to start 25 July.

BÝA (Ýstanbul) – The indecisiveness and contradictions which the
Turkish government becomes embroiled in when dealing with freedom of
expression become obvious when considering Article 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights.

In one case in the district town of Gerger in the province of Adiyaman
(south-east of Turkey), a case against journalist Haci Bogatekin was
dismissed by Public Prosecutor Sadullah Ovacikli.

Writing on a flea epidemic in an article entitled "Flea, Pig and Agha"
in the local newspaper, Bogatekin had criticised the government.

Prosecutor Ovacikli cited the Observer-Guardian versus United Kingdom
and the Prager-Oberschlick versus Austria cases, which had been taken
to the European Court of Human Rights, as precedents for his decision.

After dismissal a new trial

However, three months after the dismissal, the same prosecutor’s
office started a trial against the same journalist for a similar case,
citing Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code.

In an unsigned article published on 10 March 2007 and entitled "Turkey
Has Made a Mistake", Bogatekin had said: "The government has made a
mistake. Where and when? Yesterday, in the East and South-East. And
then in Istanbul. In Maras, in Sivas. Today in Trabzon, Istanbul,
Mersin and the South-East…" The journalist is now on trial for
"degrading the state" and the court case will begin on 25 July at a
penal court in Gerger.

Bogatekin said in his statement to the prosecution on 3 April: "I
did not write the article with a criminal intent. As a journalist,
I tried to criticise some of the mistakes the government made in the
past and recently." However, his statement did not prevent prosecution.

Wanted to prevent repetition of mistakes

Bogatekin argued that he had presented his thoughts in order to
show that the repetition of mistakes would blight the future of the
country. In his article, he had held the government responsible for
"the death of millions of Armenians and Syriac Christians in the
East and South-East, after that the death of the Alevi in Dersim,
then the Greek Orthodox in Istanbul with the September movement,
and more recently the death of hundreds of people in Maras, Malatya,
Corum and Sivas".

In the previous case against Bogatekin, related to the article
published on 7 December 2006, in which he had criticised the
government’s hygiene standards, the prosecution had dismissed
proceedings, arguing that "although freedom of expression was
exaggerated to a certain extent, the article even contained some
provocations, and some of the expressions used were polemical
in nature, the expressions were used to support an objective
statement, and they are not considered an unfounded personal
attack". (EO/EU/AG/EU)

–Boundary_(ID_bJsE2lps7scAO3HyxH5q HA)–