The new Turkey
Şerife Oruç.
Dicle News Agency (DİHA)

9 July 2018:

Şerife Oruç released from custody after Batman 2nd High Criminal Court lifts arrest warrant against journalist 

Former Dicle news agency (DİHA) reporter Şerife Oruç, who was arrested on July 9 as she was being released from the Elazığ T Type Prison, was released from custody on Tuesday.

Oruç had been in pretrial detention for two years as part of a trial in which she is charged with “membership in a terrorist organization.” She faces up to 15 years of imprisonment.

At the end of the sixth hearing of that trial, on July 9, the Batman 2nd High Criminal Court ruled to release the journalist pending the verdict in the trial. However, she was re-arrested as she was leaving the Elazığ T Type Prison on grounds of an arrest warrant issued earlier.

The Mezopotamya news agency reported that the arrest warrant had been issued by the 4th Criminal Judgeship of Peace in Diyarbakır as part of another case filed against the journalist during the time when she was already in detention. That file was later merged with the ongoing case in Batman. Oruç was arrested because the trial court had failed to lift the previous arrest warrant.

Oruç was released after the trial court lifted the arrest warrant on Tuesday.

Oruç is standing trial alongside her cousin, Emrullah Oruç, and the driver of the car the two were riding in, Muzaffer Tunç. All three were arrested and jailed pending trial on July 4, 2016, in Batman. The accusations against Şerife Oruç in the indictment are based on witness testimony.

9 July 2018:

Journalist Şerife Oruç detained again after being released from 793-day arrest

Journalist Şerife Oruç has been detained again immediately after she was released from 793 days of pre-trial detention.

Under arrest on terror charges since July 5, 2016, Oruç was released on judicial control on Monday. Media associations from in and outside of Turkey welcomed the decision. Yet, Oruç was rounded up immediately after she was released as part of another investigation against her.

Oruc worked as a reporter for the pro-Kurdish DIHA news agency until it was shut down by the government in the aftermath of the July 15, 2016 failed coup.

Police detained Oruç, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), on July 4, 2016, while she was traveling in a car with her cousin and a driver who had picked them up while they were hitchhiking between the southeastern provinces of Diyarbakır and Batman, according to news reports citing DİHA. The reports said the three were detained on suspicion of "aiding a [terrorist] organization."

After all three were questioned by a prosecutor, Batman's Second Court of Penal Peace ordered Oruç and her companions jailed, pending trial on suspicion of "being a member of a [terrorist] organization," according to press reports. Oruç, who denied the charges in court, was sent to Batman prison pending trial, according to news reports. DİHA reported that Oruç was on her way to cover a news story in Batman at the time of her arrest.

CPJ reviewed the records of Oruç's interrogation by a prosecutor, and the court's order to jail her pending trial. The journalist denied accusations of being a fighter for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey classes as a terrorist organization, and said she had never fired a gun. She told the prosecutor she had been in Diyarbakır for newsgathering purposes, and that she had not been close to fighting there. She denied the police report's claim that she had tried to run from them.

According to the record of her arraignment hearing, Oruç's lawyer, Mesut Aydın, argued that the police reports about her arrest and those of her companions were conflicting: For example, he said, one report said the three tried to run in different directions; another said they had been apprehended after a car chase.

Oruç’s trial began in the southeastern Turkish city of Batman on July 27, 2017, the news website Gazete Sujin reported. She attended the hearing via videoconference from prison in Mardin.

"My client is a reporter and journalist," Aydın told Batman's Second Court for Serious Crimes, according to Gazete Sujin. "It is impossible to avoid becoming a target if you work for a dissident [news] agency. My client has become a target for working at DİHA."

The court refused her request to be released pending the conclusion of her trial, Gazete Sujinreported. Oruç’s cousin and the driver of the car are also in custody for the duration of the trial, the report said.

The next hearing was scheduled to take place on January 11, 2018, Gazete Karınca reported.*

This page is licensed under Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)