Turkey

Trial Monitoring Report

Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) watched 147 hearings of 98 cases with 15 observers in 11 cities between January 1 and July 15, 2021, as part of the case monitoring project carried out with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) Turkey Office.

The report data revealed that the trend of pending trial, which was detected in the previous monitoring period, continued and the charges against the defendants did not change. While the rate of pre-trial detention was 6% in the period covered by the previous report, this rate dropped to 3% in the new monitoring period. In the previous reporting period, 46% of the charges brought against the prosecuted were related to terrorism, while this rate was 58% in this period.

After terrorist crimes, the most common accusation was “insulting the President” with a rate of 6%. In this period, a significant decrease was observed in the rate of conviction for crimes regulated by the Anti-Terror Law (TMK); While the rate of punishment from the TMK was 78% in the previous period, this rate was 30% in the period covered by this report. However, it was determined that journalists were punished more for other crimes during this period. For example, the rate of punishment for "insulting the President", which is regulated in Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), increased from 10% to 25%, and the rate of punishment for "insulting a public official", which is regulated in the third paragraph of Article 125, increased from 5% to 17%.

During this period, the number of journalists imprisoned due to the news they made decreased from 66 to 60. The current number of journalists and press workers currently in prison is 57.