The new Turkey
Ali Bulac,
Former columnist for the shuttered daily newspaper Zaman.

01-Aug-2019 10:24

Medium:	Internet, Print
Charge:	Anti-state, False News
Imprisoned:	27 July 2016

25 June 2019:

Appellate court upholds verdict in “Zaman trial”

The trial court had convicted columnists Ahmet Turan Alkan, Ali Bulaç, Şahin Alpay, Mümtazer Türköne, Mustafa Ünal and editor İbrahim Karayeğen of “membership in a terrorist group” in July 2018

An appellate court has upheld the verdict rendered last year in the “Zaman trial,” where 11 former columnists and editors of the shuttered newspaper were accused of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” and “membership in a terrorist group.”

The 2nd Criminal Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Justice upheld the trial court’s verdict on 25 June 2019. The prosecutor has appealed against the appellate court’s ruling at the Supreme Court of Appeals.

The trial court had convicted six of the defendants in the case on 6 July 2018, while acquitting five journalists of all charges.

Columnists Ahmet Turan Alkan, Ali Bulaç, Şahin Alpay, Mümtazer Türköne, Zaman’s Ankara representative Mustafa Ünal and the newspaper’s night shift editor İbrahim Karayeğen were convicted of “membership in a terrorist group” and each given prison terms between 8 years and 9 months and 10.5 years. Columnists Lale Sarıibrahimoğlu, Nuriye Ural, İhsan Dağı, editor Mehmet Özdemir and lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz were acquitted of all charges.

Türköne and Ünal were each sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison and ordered to remain behind bars pending the appeal process.

The trial, which got under way in April 2017, was based on an indictment into 30 people initially. The investigation targeted journalists, columnists and other press members from media outlets linked with the religious network led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. The Turkish government lists the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization and accuses its members of orchestrating the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016.

Source: https://expressioninterrupted.com/
appellate-court-upholds-verdict-in-zaman-trial/

6 July 2018:

Five acquitted in Zaman trial, two journos released from jail

Court convicts 6 journalists of “FETÖ membership” while acquitting all 11 defendants of the “coup” charge in the indictment

The long-running case into 11 former columnists and editors of the Zaman newspaper, closed down in 2016 through a statutory decree, came to an end on July 6. The trial court convicted six of the journalists standing trial of “membership in a terrorist organization” while acquitting five of the defendants.

The 13th High Criminal Court of Istanbul acquitted columnists Lale Sarıibrahimoğlu, Nuriye Ural, İhsan Dağı, editor Mehmet Özdemir and lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz of all charges.

The panel found six of the defendants -- columnists Ahmet Turan Alkan, Ali Bulaç, Şahin Alpay, Mümtazer Türköne, Zaman’s Ankara representative Mustafa Ünal and the newspaper’s night shift editor İbrahim Karayeğen -- guilty of the “membership in a terrorist group” charge, handing down prison sentences of various lengths between 8 years and 9 months and 10.5 years.

Alkan, who had been in pretrial detention in Silivri Prison for almost two years as part of the case, was given 8 years and 9 months in prison. The court ruled to release Alkan under judicial control measures.

Şahin Alpay and Ali Bulaç, both of whom had been released from prison in previous hearings after more than 1.5 years in pretrial detention each, were also sentenced to 8 years and 9 months imprisonment. The court did not rule for their rearrest, but for the continuation of the judicial control measures imposed on both Alpay and Bulaç.

Karayeğen, who has also spent almost two years in pretrial detention in Silivri, was given a nine-year sentence. The court ruled for Karayeğen’s release under judicial control measures.

The court gave the lengthiest sentences in the trial to columnist Türköne and Ankara representative-columnist Ünal, sentencing each to 10.5 years in prison. The panel also ruled for the continuation of Türköne and Ünal’s detentions pending the appeal process.

In addition to P24, the hearing at the Istanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan was monitored by representatives from the London-based free expression advocacy group Article 19, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Human Rights Watch (HRW), the German Consulate-General in Istanbul and the EU Delegation in Turkey. Swedish and Norwegian diplomats attended the first day of the hearing on July 5.

The trial, which started more than a year ago, on April 10, 2017, was based on an indictment into 30 people initially. The vast majority of the suspects were arrested and jailed pending trial as part of sweeping operations targeting journalists and columnists working at media outlets linked with the Fethullah Gülen community, which the Turkish government brands as the “Fethullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure (FETÖ/PDY)” and accuses of being the perpetrators behind the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016.

At the end of the third hearing of the case, the court ruled to separate the files of 20 of the defendants who were on trial for their financial involvement with or for having assumed administrational duties within Feza Media Group -- the parent company that included the Zaman newspaper and the Cihan News Agency as well as several other newspapers and television stations linked with the Gülen network.

The remaining 11 defendants in the main case each faced various charges that included “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order,” “membership in a terrorist organization,” “conducting propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “aiding a terrorist organization without being its member.” **

6 July 2018:

Verdicts announced in Turkey’s Zaman newspaper case

The verdicts have been announced in another of the high profile trials of press workers in Turkey, the world's leading jailer of journalists.

None of the defendants in the case of Turkey’s Zaman newspaper were convicted of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, a charge which would have seen them awarded life sentences, according to Article 19 Europe.

Five defendants were completely acquitted, while the other journalists were given terror charges.

Zaman newspaper was a media outlet linked to the Fethullah Gülen movement, a group that stands accused of undertaking a failed July 2016 coup attempt. In this trial, many of its journalists were accused of foreknowledge or preparing the ground for the coup attempt. Gülen denies charges. ........................

..............Journalists Şahin Alpay and Ali Bulaç were each given 8 years and 9 months’ prison for “membership of a terrorist organisation” but will remain free until the appeals process is complete, journalism platform P24 said .

Ahmet Turan Alkan was also given 8 years and 9 months each, while İbrahim Karayeğen was given 9 years and Mümtazer Türköne and Mustafa Ünal were given 10 years and 6 months on the same charges.

"In this trial, the prosecution's wishful thinking has turned into an indictment," said Alkan's lawyer, Faruk Zorba, during the trial. "The only correct information in the indictment is that the client wrote for Zaman newspaper. Writing for Zaman does not constitute membership of a terrorist organisation," he said.

9 June 2018:

Jailed journalists in Zaman trial remain behind bars

............Columnist Ali Bulaç addressed the court next. Noting that Zaman had been a legitimate media outlet until the day it was closed down, Bulaç said he could neither be accused for having worked there as a columnist, nor for the escape of the newspaper’s editor in chief.

“I am being incriminated based on the newspaper I wrote for,” said Bulaç, adding that the content of his writing was being ignored.

He also said that both the indictment and the prosecutor’s final opinion featured excerpts from his articles that form the basis of the allegations. Instead, Bulaç said, the articles should have been included in their entirety. “I have done nothing but journalism. I would like to remain a man of ideas,” Bulaç said, requesting his acquittal.--------------------

8 June 2018

Court rules to continue pretrial detention of jailed Zaman journalists

13 Auguste 2014:

Gül targeted in social media smear campaign by pro-Erdoğan trolls
.............. In February, several Twitter users, known for their closeness to the AK Party government, circulated a list of "to-be-arrested" journalists. Those users have been naming journalists and claiming that they would be arrested soon. Among them are Nazlı Ilıcak, Emre Uslu, Cüneyt Özdemir, Mehmet Baransu, Cengiz Çandar, Ahmet Hakan Coşkun, Ekrem Dumanlı, Hasan Cemal and Ali Bulaç. ...................

Ali Bulaç, a former columnist for the shuttered daily newspaper Zaman, turned himself in to police on July 27, 2016, when he learned from the press that there was a warrant for his arrest, he told Istanbul's Fourth Court of Penal Peace at his July 30, 2016, arraignment hearing.

The court arraigned him and codefendants and fellow former Zaman journalists Şahin Alpay, Ahmet Turan Alkan, and Mustafa Ünal on charges of being members of a terrorist organization. They were accused of following exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish government accuses of maintaining a terrorist organization and "parallel state structure" (FETÖ/PDY, by its Turkish acronym) and masterminding a failed military coup on July 15, 2016.

According to records of the arraignment hearing, which CPJ has reviewed, the state alleged that Bulaç, Alpay, Alkan, and Ünal wrote articles in Zaman praising FETÖ/PDY and that the newspaper was the group's media organ.

The state further alleged that because Bulaç and the other Zaman columnists continued writing for the newspaper after its editor-in-chief, Ekrem Dumanlı, was charged in absentia of being "a member of an armed terrorist organization," they remained involved even though they knew the group included armed elements, according to court records.

According to the court records, the state also alleged that Bulaç, Alpay, Alkan, and Ünal praised Gülenists on social media, despite what the state described as "strong discourse and public information" that an armed uprising would take place.

An Istanbul court in March 2016 ordered the Feza Media Group, which owned Zaman and several other media outlets, placed under trustees appointed by the government. The government used emergency powers arrogated after the failed July 15 military coup to order the newspaper closed by decree on July 27, 2016.

The court judged Bulaç, Alpay, Alkan, and Ünal to be flight risks and ordered them jailed pending trial. Many people have fled in the wake of the government crackdown on suspected Gülenists.

The court did not specify the accusations against the individual journalists but judged their cases collectively, court documents show.

Bulaç is on trial alongside 30 journalists and media workers, and an academic. All are charged with “attempting, through violence and force, to disrupt and replace the order as recognized by Turkey’s Constitution,” “attempting through violence and force to eliminate or prevent Parliament from carrying out its duties,” and “being a member of an armed terrorist organization.” Not all of the defendants are in custody.

The trial’s first hearing began in Istanbul on September 18, 2017, according to local reports.

In the indictment, reviewed by CPJ, the prosecution said that the defendants’ journalism-- including opinion pieces or their employment by pro-Gülen outlets such as the daily Zaman and Cihan News Agency--is evidence that the journalists were part of the so-called Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure (FETÖ/PDY).

The indictment accused the journalists—which it referred to as “the media force of the terrorist organization”—of producing false news to weaken the government, insult or humiliate the authorities, attempt to disrupt the peace, and to create an environment suitable for a coup.

Bulaç denies the charges, according to the indictment. If convicted, he faces multiple life sentences without parole.

The next court date is scheduled for December 8, 2017, according to press reports.

Bulaç, who was 66 at the time of his arrest, told the court that he had had heart bypass surgery and suffers from high blood pressure, diabetes, and enlarged thyroid, the court records indicate.

**Source

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The new Turkey Ali Bulac, Former columnist for the shuttered daily newspaper Zaman.