Category: Freedom of information

Turkey violated the right to freedom of expression in convicting two individuals over their social media posts, one in support of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and the other describing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a “filthy thief”, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday.

Baran Burukan was given a prison sentence of just over a year in 2018 after he shared content that contained the words, ‘Long live the Kurdistan resistance’ and ‘Long live Abdullah Ocalan’. Arrested in 1999 and convicted of terrorism, Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, is serving a life sentence.

The second applicant to the Strasbourg court, Ilknur Birol, was given a sentence of 10 months in 2019 for a 2015 tweet in which she wrote: “Tayyip Erdogan filthy thief”. In both cases, the courts suspended the judgment, a measure that requires the consent of the defendant before their guilt is decided.

After their appeals were rejected by Turkish courts, including the Constitutional Court, Birol and Burukan turned to the ECHR.

In its own ruling, the ECHR noted that in a later case, from mid-2022, the Turkish Constitutional Court found fault with the practice of suspending judgment, saying such decisions “were not based on appropriate and sufficient reasons, that the courts failed to give due consideration to the defendants’ arguments in their defence and rejected requests for the gathering and examination of evidence on irrelevant grounds, and that those concerned had neither the help of a defence lawyer or the necessary time and facilities to prepare their defence adequately”.

Subsequent appeals in such cases were ineffective given that the courts often relied on “insufficient, formulaic reasoning while only conducting a merely formal examination, on the basis of the case file, without weighing up the interests at stake”, the ECHR cited the Constitutional Court as ruling. It also said that the practice of asking a defendant to consent to a suspended judgment at the very outset – before his or her guilt had been decided – “was likely to exert pressure on him or her and to give rise to a perception of his or her guilt in the judge’s mind, without being counterbalanced by any fair trial safeguards”.

The ECHR said it saw “no reason to find otherwise” and described the problem as systemic.

“The Court held that, in view of their potentially chilling effect, the criminal convictions, together with the decisions to suspend the judgments (subject to probation periods of three and five years respectively) constituted an interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression,” it said, and ordered Turkey to pay each applicant 2,600 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

Over the past several years, journalists, academics, politicians, and private individuals have been taken to court over their social media posts since the adoption of draconian laws and regulations under Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic rule.

In 2021, an investigation by independent media outlet Gazete Duvar found that more than 128,000 investigations were launched between 2014 and 2019 concerning alleged insults against Erdogan, resulting in more than 27,000 criminal cases launched by prosecutors.

The European Court of Human Rights, ECHR in Strasbourg, ruled on Tuesday in favour of Belgrade-based TV B92 and against Serbia in a case centred on the station’s reporting of allegations of abuse of office by the assistant health minister in 2011.

The ECHR said it found that Serbia had committed a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“The court found that, overall, the applicant company [TV B92] had acted in good faith and with the diligence expected of responsible journalism,” the court decision said.

Amid a controversy over the procurement of swine flu vaccines in 2011, the assistant health minister at the time, Zorica Pavlovic, was accused of abuse of office.

TV B92 reported that 12 names, including assistant health minister Pavlovic, had disappeared from a police list of suspects of abuse of office in relation to the controversy, allegedly because of pressure exerted by the Special Prosecutor on the Interior Ministry.

The reporting was based on an investigation by a team of B92 journalists from the ‘Insajder’ TV show, and in particular on a note obtained from two police officers that had been drawn up by a division of the Fight Against Organised Financial Crime Department.

In April 2012, assistant minister Pavlovic, who was named in the note, instituted civil proceedings against B92.

Serbian courts found that B92’s TV broadcasts and online articles had damaged Pavlovic’s reputation, and ordered it to pay 1,750 euros in non-pecuniary damages and 900 euros for costs. It was also ordered to remove the article from its website and to publish the judgment against it.

All the Serbian courts that dealt with the case, and ultimately the Constitutional Court in 2016, found that B92 had failed to check its facts with due diligence, particularly with regard to the allegation that the criminal complaint against Pavlovic had not been filed because of pressure on the Interior Ministry.

But the ECHR’s verdict said that the courts had “gone too far in their criticism of the applicant company’s fact-checking”.

“The company had based its reporting on a note obtained from police officers about the investigation into the controversy, and there had been no doubts over the note’s credibility. The language used in the reporting had been accurate and not exaggerated, and all the parties had been contacted to obtain their version of events,” the verdict said.

The ECHR said that Serbia also needs to pay the applicant 2,740 euros in pecuniary damages, 2,500 in non-pecuniary damages and 2,400 for costs and expenses.

RTV B92, founded in 1989 as radio station, was a rare source of media resistance to authoritarian Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’ nationalist regime in the 1990s.

It was banned by the state and achieved a cult status among its audience. After Milosevic was ousted in 2000, B92 continued its broadcasts, including the well-respected ‘Insajder’ investigative programme.

‘Insajder’ broadcast the story on the procurement of swine flu vaccines as a part of a series of shows in a series called ‘Buying and Selling of Health’.

In September 2015, the Greek ANT1 Group became the majority shareholder of TV B92, and the media outlet’s editorial focus changed.

The creator of the ‘Insajder’ programme, Brankica Stankovic, left B92 in 2015 and started her own production company and website, and has continued to work in investigative journalism.

Nineteen international and Turkish rights watchdogs and media organisations on Wednesday condemned the Turkish authorities’ decision to imprison investigative journalist Baris Pehlivan for a fifth time.

“We are concerned by the repeated judicial harassment of Pehlivan, who is exercising his fundamental right to free speech as a journalist in Turkey,” the organisations said in a joint letter.

On August 2, Pehlivan was informed via an SMS from the Ministry of Justice that he was expected to turn himself over to the Marmara Low Security Correctional Institution between August 1 and 15.

“Pehlivan has already been incarcerated four times due to his journalism, two of those being one day behind bars in February and May 2023 for the same sentence. This order would mark his fifth time behind bars,” the rights and media groups’ letter said said.

Pehlivan was arrested in March 2020 over his coverage of the funeral of a Turkish National Intelligence Organization, MIT officer in Libya, and taken to court alongside journalists Aydin Keser, Baris Terkoglu, Eren Ekinci, Hulya Kilinc, Ferhat Celik and Murat Agırel.

He was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison on charges of exposing classified intelligence documents.

In May 2020, the Turkish authorities postponed the sentences of thousands of inmates due to COVID-19 pandemic, but a last-minute clause excluded primarily the charges that journalists face, keeping all journalists, including Pehlivan, in prison.

After spending six months behind bars, Pehlivan was released on parole in September 2020 on condition that he does not reoffend.

After his release, Pehlivan commented on the court’s decision by saying: “There is no crime in this case. This case aims to punish our journalism.”

In July this year, the Turkish parliament enacted a measure drafted by the governing coalition regulating parole and probation rules which should have assured Pehlivan’s parole.

Instead he was recalled to prison by SMS last week for the March 2020 offence.

When Pehlivan’s lawyer filed a request for information on the decision that the journalist should hand himself in to the correctional institution, “the response indicated that the prison administration had disregarded the relevant clauses of the legislation [on parole] from July 2023”.

“We call upon the Turkish authorities to reverse the decision to reimprison Pehlivan and end the systematic judicial harassment against him and other journalists. We reiterate our solidarity with the imprisoned journalists. Journalism is not a crime and every minute a journalist spends behind bars is a violation of freedom of expression and media freedom,” the joint letter said.

Media organisations and rights groups say that Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, also exerting pressure on the media through court cases, fines and prison sentences.

A recent report published in June by Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom says Turkey is copying the Russian ‘playbook’, using the judiciary to silence critical journalism.

Turkey ranked 165th out of 180 countries in 2023 in the latest press freedom index issued by the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders.

Kosovo’s Commercial Court decided on Thursday to postpone the execution of government decision to close down privately-owned TV channel Klan Kosova by removing its business certificate until a final court decision is taken.

In its verdict, Kosovo’s Commercial Court said that Klan Kosova has fulfilled the legal criteria to continue operating.

“Since according to the certificates presented [to the court], it transpires that the plaintiff [Klan Kosova] has made the [required] changes in business registries in North Macedonia and Kosovo, the court assessed that postponing the execution of the contested decision does not conflict with the public interest,” judge Arnis Dumani said in the verdict.

The verdict also said that it would be “contrary to the public interest” and the media freedom guarantees in Kosovo’s constitution if it did not postpone the execution of the decision to suspend the channel’s business certificate.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK, welcomed the verdict which it said allows Klan Kosova to stay on air “despite the government’s decision to shut it down”.

“The AJK will closely monitor further procedures, hoping that a swift epilogue will close this episode of the government attemptting to undermine freedom of media in Kosovo,” the AJK said.

The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom also welcomed the court’s decision, saying that “this interim decision protects media pluralism and counters the government’s attempts to undermine press freedom”.

The dispute started in June when news website Kosovanews published an investigation that suggested irregularities in Klan Kosova’s registration in Kosovo’s business registry.

The ministry then suspended Klan Kosova’s business certificate and initiated a criminal complaint against the company, its managers and officials from the Business Registration Agency on suspicion of misuse of office.

According to the decision, which was made public by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo, the ministry suspended Klan Kosova’s business certificate because the owners’ residential address is allegedly registered as “Peje-Serbia and Gjakove-Serbia… [which is] in violation with the basic principles of the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo”. Both towns are in Kosovo, not Serbia.

The Independent Media Commission, the institution responsible for the regulation, management and oversight of broadcasters in Kosovo, gave TV channel a month to correct the documentation, but on the final day, July 28, the ministry said that Klan Kosova failed to comply with the request.

Klan Kosova insisted on Monday however that it has corrected all the data in the business registry and accused the ministry of “fraudulently presenting a situation that does not exist”.

But the ministry said that its commission, which reviewed the case, acted in accordance with the law when it suspended the certificate.

“The commission decision closes this case within the ministry while the complaining entity has the right to take the case to the court,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry’s decision sparked angry reactions and hundreds of journalists and civil society activists marched on Monday to Pristina’s main square to protest, holding a banner with the slogan “Democracy dies in darkness”, calling the move to suspend the business certificate an attempt to curb the freedom of the media.

Turkish and international media organisations condemned the arrest of a journalist for reportng the new posting of a married judge and prosecutor couple who had previously jailed dozens of journalists.

Four other journalists were also taken into police custody for retweeting the news report. They have since been released.

“Raids and the detention/arrest of five journalists are unacceptable. This is an assault on media freedom and society’s right to access information. Journalists cannot be subjected to judicial harassment because of their work and become the target of investigations and raids for uncovering something wrong,” said the Coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, a nonprofit that promotes and defends media freedom.

Evrim Kepenek, the last of five journalists taken into police custody in Istanbul, was released by a court on Wednesday with a judicial review measure and a travel ban, due to her retweet of a news report about the new posting of the married judge and prosecutor couple who had previously jailed dozens of journalists.

“You cannot prosecute Kepenek and other detained journalists. Journalism is not a crime,” the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, TGS, said on Wednesday.

The prosecutors’ office said the five journalists had targeted the couple and pressed charges of “marking counter-terrorism officials as a target”.

The arrested journalist, Fırat Can Arslan, a reporter for Mezopotamya Agency, MA, had covered a separate case involving 18 Kurdish journalists accused of “terrorism.”

He was arrested on Tuesday after he reported on the issue of the married judge and a prosecutor and having their work locations changed.

The other four detained for retweeting Arslan’s report and later released by the courts were: T24 news website reporter Sibel Yukler, MA reporter Delal Akyuz, journalist Evrim Deniz and Bia.net’s editor Kepenek.

Except for Arslan, all the journalists are banned from travelling abroad and have to visit police station on a regular basis.

Ozturan, of the Media Freedom Rapid Response, told BIRN that the detentions and arrests were no surprise.

“This comes as no surprise considering the long-term pressure targeting media freedom in Turkey which has been escalating especially since the beginning of the year. This pressure needs to stop and journalists need to fulfil their duties as witnesses of the time they are living in,” Ozturan said.

Media organisations and rights groups say that Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, also exerting pressure on the media through court cases, fines and prison sentences.

Turkey ranked 165th out of 180 countries in 2023 in the latest press freedom index issued by the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF.

Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK, on Friday banned Turkish citizens and companies from placings advertisements on Twitter after the social media giant failed to obey a new digital law and appoint an official representative.

“It has been decided to prohibit the placing of new advertisements by natural and legal persons on X Corp. (Twitter) formerly known as Twitter, Inc, which failed to fulfil its obligation to designate … representatives,” the BTK wrote in its decision published in the Official Gazette.

Turkey’s new digital law, adopted in 2022, was widely condemned by rights groups, experts and the opposition, which said it would increase government control and censorship on social media platforms.

Any persons or companies who place advertisements on Twitter will now be fined.

The new law requires social media companies to appoint official representatives in Turkey who will be responsible for handling government demands and notifications, such as for content removal.

If Twitter continues to fail to appoint a representative in Turkey, the next step will be halving the bandwidth for Twitter, according to the law.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has passed a number of draconian laws and regulations concerning social media, digital rights and internet freedoms in recent years.

Online threats against journalists are more intense and common than physical ones, but most newsrooms have not set up safety protocols to help them respond to these attacks, while laws do not provide efficient protection, BIRN and IJAS’s new report reveals.

Working in an environment that is becoming primarily digital has left journalists and media more exposed to online to attacks, insults and threats, but many newsrooms have not established mechanisms to deal with such cases and legislation does not provide adequate protection either.

These are some of the findings from the latest report, “Journalists’ Safety in the Digital Environment”, which BIRN Serbia and the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia, IJAS, published on July 18.

Online attacks and threats impact journalists’ mental health and private lives and affect relations in the newsrooms and commitment to professional standards. Online abuse is typically “normalised” and
considered as part of the job.

“The most striking finding is that hate speech, threats, insults, intimidation, pressure and other forms of digital violence against journalists are so widespread in Serbia that journalists believe that it has become a daily ‘normal’ environment in which they work and that it is the price they pay for their work.

“When faced with digital threats and insults, they generally do not report them because they know that, at the institutional level of protection, things are rarely undertaken and resolved,” says Aleksandra Krstic, associate professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade, one of the report’s authors.

Endangerment of journalists’ safety may lead to self-censorship and journalists may even abandon stories of public interest. which then lowers the quality of information the public receives and puts at risk media independence and freedom of speech, the report notes.

The report says many journalists rarely report insults and threats, warning that “the lack of trust that journalists have in the institutional protection system, the competent prosecutor’s office or the courts, is alarming”.

Marija Babic, lawyer at IJAS and another author of the report, says it is necessary to harmonise laws with developments in the digital space in order to prosecute attacks.

“Competent authorities should process attacks and threats to journalists as quickly as possible. It is also very important that such attacks are condemned by high-ranking state officials, who should stop pressuring and targeting journalists and the media as this is only making them [journalists and media] targets of very serious attacks,” says Babic.

The report also notes the lack of professional solidarity with attacked journalists and the fact that journalists and editors mainly turn to the public – which is the only thing they still trust – hoping that publicising attacks and threats will save them from potential attackers.

“All these findings should be read in a general, social context that is not conducive to the development of free and independent media. Threats and pressures, intense public campaigns led by representatives of the highest state authorities, a culture of impunity and weak institutions lead to a situation where journalists and the media are legitimate ‘targets’.

“Apart from the need to strengthen the capacities of the newsrooms themselves, we should insist on more effective protection mechanisms through amendments to the laws and a stronger response from institutions,” says Tanja Maksic, program manager and researcher at BIRN and one of the authors of the report.

The full report in Serbian and English is available on BIRN Serbia’s website.