Lack of evidence in the indictment against Necla Demir
«Failing to properly connect evidence»
“Not only did the prosecutor fail to provide sufficient evidence to lawfully continue with the proceedings, but he subsequently neglected to link the supposed evidence to his accusations entirely. Failing to properly connect evidence to the criminal charges constitutes yet another infringement of Art 6/2 ECHR, the presumption of innocence,” said Hannah Beck and Clarissa Fondi, who reviewed the indictment.
You can read the full report here:
Summary of Case / Background Information
Necla Demir is a journalist from Turkey, who started her career as a reporter for Dicle News Agency until it was shut down by an Emergency Decree-Law during the State of Emergency in 2016. She became editor-in-chief of Gazete Karınca Newspaper and was responsible for the publication of the articles on the newspaper’s website.
An investigation was launched against her in 2020, following anonymous complaints via the Communication Service of the Prime Ministry (BİMER), which in 2018 was renamed and is now better known as Communication Service of the President (CİMER). The platform is usually used by the citizens of Turkey to ask for information, voice concerns or submit complaints.
These anonymous complaints insinuated that some of the articles and shared items on the newspaper’s website potentially fall within the scope of “insulting the President” as stated in Art 299 Turkish Penal Code (TPC).
In order to open a lawsuit against an individual for the crime of “insulting the President” it is required to obtain permission from the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Justice. In this respect the obligatory permission was granted on 2 January 2020, which was followed by the issuance of the indictment on 3 February 2020.
The first hearing was supposed to take place on 13 May 2020, but had to be postponed to October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 8 and 28 October 2020, the second and third hearing took place. The President’s lawyer did not participate in any of the proceedings. In the third hearing, not only Necla Demir herself but also the trial’s prosecutor asked the judge for an acquittal because according to them the cited articles did not contain any insulting statements and were merely constituting permissible criticism. Bearing in mind that the prosecutor who represents the public prosecutor’s office at court, is generally a different person than the prosecutor who issued the indictment. Following this prosecutor’s opinion, the court ruled to acquit Necla Demir.
This report is a part of PEN Norway’s Turkey Indictment Project. Read the reports from the 2020 project here.
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