The new Turkey
Gökhan Çetin.
Hayatın Sesi TV's general director

21-Feb-2020 15:40

6 December 2019:

Convictions of Hayatın Sesi TV executives quashed

An appellate court has quashed the convictions against the executives of the shuttered TV station Hayatın Sesi on the charge of “systematically spreading terrorism propaganda.”

At the end of their trial in September 2018, the 13th High Criminal Court of Istanbul had sentenced the station’s co-owners Mustafa Kara and İsmail Gökhan Bayram and the responsible managing editor Gökhan Çetin to three years and nine months in prison each. In its unanimous ruling, the 27th Criminal Chamber of the Regional Court of Justice acquitted all three defendants on the grounds that the news coverage by the channel “did not cross the line of journalism.”

19 September 2018:

Court finds journalists guilty of making propaganda for terrorists 
A court on September 19 found the directors of the shutteredsocialist television channel Hayatın Sesi TV guilty of making propaganda for terrorist organisations, the daily Evrensel reported.

Turkish prosecutors accused the journalists of propagandising for the militant group Islamic State, and the armed groups the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) and Kurdish group Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), through its coverage of events in Iraq and Turkey, according to documents CPJ viewed in 2017. Turkey deems all three groups as terrorist organizations.

According to Evrensel, Mustafa Kara and İsmail Gökhan Bayram, the owners of the outlet and Gökhan Çetin, the station's general director, were sentenced to three years and nine months' prison. The journalists remain free pending the appeal process.