Caselist - PEN International

72Özgür BOGATEKIN: journalist for Gerger Firat in Adiyaman andson of Haci Bogatekin, (above). Sentenced on 13 May 2009 to 1 year, 2months and 17 days in prison for an article in which he argued that hisfather was imprisoned unlawfully. At the time the article was written inJune 2008, his father was still in jail. Özgür Bogatekin was convicted of“insulting” the judge presumably who had presided over his father’s caseby referring to him as a pegur, an insult used in the locality referring tohaving wolf like traits. He also suggests that there is animosity betweenthe judge and his father. No recent news.Hasan CAKKALKURT, Namik DURUKAN: chief editor andjournalist for Radikal respectively. Trial opened on 12 August 2009 oncharges article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law for having carried a statementby a PKK leader in which he states that even if there were to be anamnesty for Kurdish rebels, the PKK would not put down weapons. On15 June 2010 the trial against Durukan continued at the Istanbul 10thHigh Criminal Court. A final decision was due on 21 September 2010.No news. Assumed case closed.Cengiz ÇANDAR: journalist for Referans tried for an article criticisingthe conduct of the Hrant Dink murder trial (see above) that critcised thecourt for not allowing secret witnesses and accused the judge of beingtoo “free and easy”. He was accused of “insulting a public servant”. Thearticle was entitled ‘Mocking Hrant and Justice’. The first hearing is setof 13 December 2010. No news since.Murat COSKUN: author of Language of Suffering: Woman” publishedby Peri Publishing House in 2002. The book contains four stories writtenin lyric form. Coskun was reported in 2009 to be facing charges underArticle 301, alongside Peri Publishing Houser director, Ahmet ONAL,for insult to the armed forces. The case is went for consideration by theMinistry of Justice. The charges related to a passage in the book in whichthe Turkish armed forces are described as “vultures” and another where aPKK militant is quotes PKK “propaganda”. No recent news.Rüstü DEMIRKAYA: journalist for the Dicle News Agency. Sentencedto six years and three months in prison under Article 314/2 of the PenalCode – “assisting and harbouring an illegal organisation” . Charges:accused of having met with PKK officials in Tunceli in fall 2005 andgiving them a lap top computer and CDs. Concerns: His lawyers as wellas free expression groups say that the sentence is unsound, being basedonly on the statement of one informant. It is also claimed that at the timeof the alleged offence, Demirkaya was several hundreds of miles away,enrolling at a university course near Izmir, information that was backedup by police in Izmir. Place of Detention: Malatya Prison. Other: Twelveothers were tried with Demirkaya. One of them, the alleged informantreceived a life sentence. Four were freed. No recent news.N. Mehmet GÜLER: author. 1) Sentenced to one year and three monthsunder Article 7/2 of the Anti Terror Law for his book More DifficultDecisions than Death. Accused alongside publisher Ragip Zarakoluunder article 7/2 of the Anti Terror Law of “spreading propaganda” forthe banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The charges related to threefictional characters, “Siti”, “Sabri” and “Siyar”. Specifically a section ofthe book where a PKK member on trial says “This court has no right tojudge me. I fight for freedom. I do not recognise this court”. The fictionaljudge’s response and following passages are subject to the indictment.The prosecutor stated that some parts of the novel evokes sympathy forthe PKK in its readers. The trial was adjourned to 10 June 2010 whenZarakolu was acquitted, yet Güler was sentenced. He is free on appeal.PEN is seeking an update. 2) On 10 March 2011 Güler received a 15-month suspended sentence alongside publisher Ragip Zarakolu whoreceived a fine. Both had been convicted of spreading “propaganda”for the publication of Güler’s book The KCK File/The Global State andKurds Without a State.Erdal GÜLER: ex-editor of Revolutionary Democracy Newspaper(Devrimic Demokrasi Gazetesi) Arrested on 25/26 December 2007 andcharged with “propaganda for an illegal organisation”, the PKK and theMaoist Communist Party (MKP). Subsequently sentenced to 21 monthsin prison, to expire in December 2009. There are reportedly other chargesagainst him. In early January 2010 it was reported that he remaineddetained, despite the expiry of his sentence. Update: According to aBianet report published 9 May 2010, Güler is now not due to be releasedbefore 2014. No news since.Filiz KOÇALI, Ramazan PEKGÖZ, Ziya ÇIÇEKÇI: publishingdirector, journalist and owner of the Günlük newspaper. Charged inOctober 2009 under Articles 6/2 and 7/2 of the Anti Terror Law for aninterview published in Kurdish over three articles entitled “We did whatHasan Cemal Wanted”, “I completely agree with Yaser Kemal” and “Ifthe State Would Take One Step We would Take Two”, all quotes frominterviews with alleged members of the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party(PKK). They were accused of “spreading propaganda for an illegalorganisation”. The first hearing was held 24 February 2010 with next due2 September 2010. No news since.Cagdas KÜÇÜKBATTAL, Tuncay MAT: intern and journalist forAtilim. Detained for their alleged role in the destruction of a base station(mobile transmitter) alongside nine other defendants, six of whom,including Kücükbattal and Mat, remain detained. The trial opened on 5March 2010. They were accused of having destroyed the transmitter aspart of a campaign of actions carried out by the banned Marxist LeninistCommunist Party. Both claim that they were present at the event simplyas journalists and claim that the notes and photos they took are theonly evidence. The prosecutors claimed that Kücükbattal specificallyencouraged the event and led them into the site. Update: In the secondhearing on 29 May 2010. Mat and Küçükbattal were released pendingtrial; they had claimed that they followed the incident as journalists andthat their prosecution was a breach of law. A total of eleven defendantsare on trial, five of them are detained. The case was postponed to 24September 2010. No news since.Irmak SAADET: owner and editorial manager of the weekly YeniYorum (New Comment) magazine and Ülkede Yorum (Country Comment)newspaper. On 26 May 2011 a final hearing was held in his trial underthe Anti Terror Law and Article 215 of the Penal Code for “praising anoffender” in articles published in his newspapers. These articles reportedlyincluded the publication of a statement by the Executive Board of theUnion of Kurdistan Communities which questioned the government’sstrategy towards a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue. He also referredto the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, as the “Leader of the KurdishPeople”. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Originally sentenced toone year for publishing statements of an “illegal organisation” in articlestitled ‘All aspects of my life will be Kurdish’ and ‘The last chance for ademocratic solution’. In January 2011, this was reduced to 10 months.He was also fined for two other articles. An appeal has been filed againstthe prison term. Reported still detained as of November 2011. Presumedfreed by end of 2011.Gökçer TAHINCIOGLU, Kemal GÖKTAS: award winning journalists.1) Law suit filed in August 2008 for an article on the decision of theAnkara 11 th High Criminal Court granting permission to the NationalIntelligence Organisation (MIT) and police to use electronic monitoringdevices. The article, entitled ‘The Document that will Shake Turkey’ waspublished on 1 July 2008 in the newspaper Vatan. Accused under Article6/1 of the Anti Terror Law for “targetting public officials who are part ofanti-terror activities” by publishing classified information and by givingthe name of the judge responsible for the decision to grant permission.They faced up to three years in prison. Both had been granted the TurkishJournalists Association Media Freedom Award in July 2008 for publishingthe story. The two say that in researching and writing the story, they hadtaken care not to publish sensitive information such as photographs. Nownew information on trial as from late 2009. 2) In September 2009 it wasreported that the head of the Intelligence Department accused Göktasof attempting to influence the outcome of a trial and insulting a publicofficial in his book Hrant Dink Murder – Media, Judiciay and State andcalled for his prosecution. The case opened on 16 February 2010 at theIstanbul Sultanhamet Court and was postponed for up to four monthsto enable the prosecution to consider that the case breaches statutes oflimitation as more than four months had lapsed between the chargesbeing levelled in September 2009 and the offence. The next hearing wasset for 15 September 2010. No news since.Erol ZAVAR: referred to as a journalist for Odak Magazine. Tried at theAnkara State Security Court No 2 on 27 June 2001 and sentenced to deathunder Article 146/1 of the Criminal Code for “attempting as a memberof the illegal resistance movement, and in accordance with the aimsthereof, to overthrow the existing constitutional order by force”. Sentencereduced to life imprisonment. Claims to have been tortured. Subject of asupport campaign calling for him to receive proper treatment for bladdercancer, asthma and other problems. Said to have written a book of poetryin prison. His lawyers have demanded his release on health grounds ona number of occasions, yet all applications were rejected.. As of Augsut2011 held at Ankara No 1 F type Prison. PEN is seeking an update. Caseclosed in August 2011 on receipt of further details of the charges againsthim which include terrorism and possession of arms, and the kidnap ofa person, using a gun and fake police ID, and bringing that person to ameeting place of the People’s Liberation Party Front.TURKMENISTANHarassed*Dovletmurad YAZGULIYEV: journalist with Radio Free Europe/ RadioLiberty (RFE/RL), was summoned by security officials on 14 July 2011to appear at the police department in the town of Annau over his coverageof deadly explosions at a weapons depot near the country’s capital theprevious week. A fire at an armory on a military base in Abadan on 7July 2011 caused a series of explosions that caused tens of thousandsof people to eb evacuated from their homes. Eyewitnesses said thatscores of people were killed and injured by the blasts, but the Turkmengovernment has calimed that only 15 people were killed. Yazguiliyev wasaccused of “slandering and disseminating provocative information”. Thejournalist has been highly critical of the authorities in his blogs, accusingthem of being slow to react to the incident.UKRAINEKilled (update in investigation)Georgy GONGADZE: 31, editor of the independent Internet newspaperUkrainska Pravda--which often criticized the policies of then PresidentLeonid Kuchma--was kidnapped sometime around 16 September 2000,and murdered. His headless body was discovered in November 2000in a forest outside the town of Tarashcha. An investigation plagued byirregularities began soon after and in 2008 three police officers wereconvicted of his murder. In 2009, a key suspect, Interior Minister GeneralAleksei Pukach was arrested an also accused of the murder. In November2010, prosecutors changed the status of the case from contract killingto ‘killing on verbal order’. The new status of the case, in effect, pegsthe responsibility for commissioning the crime on a single culprit—adead interior minister and technically precludes investigators from goingafter a larger circle of suspected masterminds. Prosecutors have failed toinvestigate former and current high-ranking officials--including formerPresident Leonid Kuchma and then-head of presidential administrationand current Parliament Speaker Vladimir Litvin--who have long beensuspected of being involved in Gongadze’s killing. Ukrainian prosecutorsindicted former President Leonid Kuchma on 24 March, on abuse-ofofficecharges in connection with the murder. Trial: The trial of AlexseiPukach began on 7 July 2011 and is being conducted entirely in private.On 15 August 2011 a request by Valentina Telychenko, a lawyer forGongadze’s widow, to have the trial opened to the public was denied. Itwas reported that Pukach allegedly testified on 30 August 2011 that hehad carried out the killing in a plot orchestrated by President Kuchma.The defendant claimed that the direct order to carry out the murder wasissued by the now deceased Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko. It wasfurther reported that several other senior officials had been implicated inthe murder, including the current Parliament speaker Vladimir Litvin, andtwo of Kravchenko’s deputies, Nikolai Dzhiga and Eduard Free. However,Kuchma and Dzhiga have denied involvement, claiming that Pukachfabricated the account to avoid a potential life sentence. Update: On14 December 2011 the Kyiv court dropped all charges against Kuchma.On the same day a judge ruled that secret tape recordings by Kuchma’sformer bodyguard, in which he allegedly talks about his annoyance withGongadze and desire to ‘silence him’, could not be used as evidence asthey had been acquired by illegal means. Gongadze’s wife is to appeal thedecision to dismiss the charges against Kuchma.Disappeared: Motive UnknownVasyl KLYMENTYEV: Deputy editor-in-chief of Noviy Stil newspaper,disappeared on 11 August 2010 after getting into a car with an unidentifiedindividual. He has not been seen since. Police began criminal proceedingsfor ‘premeditated murder’ after receiving a report of his disappearanceby his wife. On 17 August, they discovered Klymentyev’s mobile phoneon a boat on the Pechenizhske Lake in Kharkiv. On 19 August, InteriorMinister Anatoly Mogylyov said that the police had not ruled out thatKlymentyev’s disappearance might be related to his reporting. On 20August, AP reported that President Viktor Yanukovych would takepersonal control of the case. Background: Klymentyev’s newspaper iswidely-known for focusing on corruption issues in the region and for itscriticism of law enforcement agencies. According to the Associated Press(AP), Klymentyev had been threatened after refusing money to quash astory about a regional prosecutor with alleged connections to organisedcrime. Other information: a witness in the case has also disappeared,according to Petro Matvienko, deputy editor-in-chief of Noviy Stil.According to a reports, Matvienko has refused to name the witness, butclaims that the disappearance is due to failures by the police to protectwitnesses. Kharkiv police said they had not been informed of thedisappearance. Update: The Noviy Stil lawyer, Vyacheslav Ismaylov,claims that the police planted drugs in his apartment during a searchrelating to another case. Ismaylov claims that he had a judge’s rulingforbidding any investigative operation of this type at his home and thatboth he and his son suffered injuries during the incident. The police say 73