24-Jan-2019 10:32

A court in the western Turkish province of Kocaeli convicted Murat Dağdeviren, the publisher, chief editor, and columnist for shuttered local newspaper Demokrat Gebze, of “being a member of a [terrorist] organization,” according to local press reports. The court on October 10, 2017, sentenced Dağdeviren to seven years and six months in prison, the reports said.

The journalist’s lawyer, Yüksel Genç, told CPJ in October 2017 that Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT) handed the court a report that alleged that his client had the Bylock app on his phone. Bylock is an encrypted messaging application that Turkish authorities claim is evidence of membership in the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization--a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, the lawyer said. The Turkish government claims Gülen’s group, which it calls FETÖ/PDY, was behind a failed coup attempt in July 2016.

Genç said that he told the court that Dağdeviren did not use the app, but the court rejected his denial.

Prosecutors presented as evidence against Dağdeviren his published work, the lawyer said. The court found Dağdeviren not guilty of a second charge of financing terrorism, according to the reports.

Police first detained Dağdeviren on June 1, 2016, on suspicion of FETÖ/PDY membership, according to news reports. He was released but police detained him again on July 24, 2016, after the failed coup attempt, local reports said. A Kocaeli Court on July 29, 2016, ordered that he be detained pending trial on the suspicion of being a member of FETÖ.

Dağdeviren did not appear on the 2016 prison census because CPJ was unable to contact his lawyer at the time to determine if the arrest was linked to journalism.

Dağdeviren’s newspaper was raided by the police on July 28, 2016, for allegedly being connected to FETÖ, according to local reports. The Turkish government closed 178 broadcasters, websites, and newspapers, including Demokrat Gebze, between July 20 and December 31, 2016, according to Bianet. The government sold the newspaper’s assets for an opening bid of 75,425 Turkish lira (US$22,131), the online newspaper Gazete Duvarreported in September 2017.

Dağdeviren was being held in Kandıra prison in Kocaeli. His lawyer told CPJ that the journalist is depressed and has lost weight.

As of late 2017, the Supreme Court had not heard his appeal.*

*Source

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