EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COURT RULES TURKEY VIOLATED FREE SPEECH LAWS
Tert.am
17:42 ~U 27.01.10
Europe’s top human rights court on Tuesday ruled that Turkey violated
free speech laws when it suspended five newspapers and sentenced a
magazine editor to prison over an article criticizing prison brutality,
reports AFP and Hurriyet Daily News.
Judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said the closure
of the five newspapers for three months by a Turkish court amounted
to censorship.
In the first case, an Istanbul court halted publication of five
newspapers under anti-terrorism laws, saying they were promoting
propaganda from the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Some 19 journalists complained this violated their right to freedom
of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The second case involved a magazine which ran an article criticizing
a security operation in Turkish prisons that left 30 inmates dead,
along with a graphic cover photo showing prisoners who had been burned
or beaten.
In the wake of the article, Turkish authorities seized all copies
of the magazine featuring the article and sentenced the owner and
editor-in-chief, Aziz Ozer, to six months’ imprisonment.
The ECHR ruled unanimously that Turkey had violated the right to free
speech in both cases, and said "the practice of banning the future
publication of entire periodicals went beyond any necessary restraint
and amounted to censorship."