The new Turkey
Deniz Yücel
The Turkey correspondent for the German newspaper Die Wel

29-Dec-2019 10:56

17 October 2019:

Deniz Yücel’s trial adjourned until February

The fifth hearing in the trial of journalist Deniz Yücel, the former Turkey correspondent of German newspaper Die Welt, took place on 17 October 2019 at the 32nd High Criminal Court of Istanbul.

P24 monitored the hearing, which began an hour later than scheduled. Yücel was represented by his lawyer Veysel Ok in the courtroom. Journalists and representatives from the German Consulate General in Istanbul were among spectators observing the hearing.

The presiding judge informed those present in the courtroom that the court has received Yücel’s defense statement taken in Germany, where his permanent residence is registered. The prosecutor asked the court to hand over the case file for the drafting of the prosecution’s final opinion. Ruling to hand over the case file to the prosecution, the court adjourned the trial until 13 February 2020.

5 September 2019:

Deniz Yücel’s trial over his social media posts gets under way

German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel’s trial on the charge of “insulting a public official” over his social media posts got under way on 5 September 2019 at Istanbul’s 24th Criminal Court of First Instance.

Yücel, the former Turkey correspondent of German daily Die Welt, was not in attendance in the courtroom and was represented by his lawyer Veysel Ok. Yücel’s lawyer said they will inform the court about his client’s permanent address in Germany. The court adjourned the trial until 11 June 2020.

16 July 2019:

Journalist Deniz Yücel’s trial adjourned until October

The trial of Turkish-German journalist Deniz Yücel, the former Turkey correspondent of the German newspaper Die Welt, on the charges of “disseminating propaganda for a terrorist group” and “inciting hatred and animosity” resumed on 16 July 2019 at the 32nd High Criminal Court of Istanbul.

P24 monitored the fourth hearing, where Yücel was represented by his lawyer Veysel Ok. The presiding judge announced that the court has just received the Constitutional Court’s ruling concerning the individual application of Yücel, in which the top court had ruled that Yücel’s pre-trial detention violated his rights to liberty and security, freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Yücel’s lawyer then asked the trial court to render its verdict in line with the Constitutional Court ruling and without waiting for Yücel’s defense statement, taken in May in Berlin, to be sent to the trial court. In its interim ruling, the court decided to wait until they receive Yücel’s statement and adjourned the trial until 17 October 2019.

28 June 2019:

Constitutional Court ruled for rights violation in Deniz Yücel’s application

The Constitutional Court on 28 June 2019 issued its judgment concerning the application on behalf of journalist Deniz Yücel, the former Turkey correspondent of the German newspaper Die Welt, who remained in pre-trial detention in Turkey for a year before being released by the trial court’s decision in February 2018.

In its judgment, dated 28 May 2019 and issued on 28 June 2019 on the court’s official website, the court’s Second Section ruled that Yücel’s pre-trial detention violated his rights to personal liberty and security, enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution, and the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press, enshrined in Articles 26 and 28.

11 May 2019:

25 September 2018:

 An Istanbul court rejected a compensation case for wrongful arrest that the lawyers for Deniz Yücel, a journalist for the German newspaper Die Welt, tried to file against the Turkish government, Deutsche Welle reported on September 25. The lawyers said they will appeal.

Yücel, a German-Turkish dual citizen who was imprisoned for a year pending investigation, was indicted, released and allowed to leave Turkey in February. President Erdoğan called the journalist a "German agent" and a "terrorist" while Yücel was imprisoned.

28 June 2018:

Police on February 14, 2017, detained Deniz Yücel, the Turkey correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt, according to Turkish and German news reports. An Istanbul court on February 27 ordered Yücel to be jailed pending investigation into claims of "propagandizing for a [terrorist] organization" and "provoking the people to hatred and animosity," the daily Evrensel reported. The first reports of his arrest suggested that the journalist was detained as part of an investigation into leaked emails belonging to Berat Albayrak, who is Turkey's energy minister and the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

According to the report, the court cited Yücel's journalistic work as evidence, in particular his interview with Cemil Bayık, a leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK); a column critical of Turkey's police towards its Kurdish citizens; two columns arguing that the evidence available did not prove that the outlawed Fethullah Gülen network was behind a failed military coup in July 2016; and another column on the destruction wrought in Cizre in the Turkish forces' battle with Kurdish separatists.

At the court hearing, Yücel, who has Turkish and German citizenship, denied being a member of a terrorist organization and said that he works as a journalist “without taking orders from the state, my boss, [or] anybody," Evrensel reported.

Yücel's lawyer, Veysel Ok, told CPJ in September 2017 that although the journalist was still under investigation in relation to the leaked emails, his case was separated from that of the co-accused in June 2017, and Yücel had not been indicted in that case.

The journalist’s lawyers appealed to the Constitutional Court to release their client, Cumhuriyet reported on March 29, 2017. The lawyers argued that their client's imprisonment violated his constitutional rights to physical integrity, personal freedom, a fair trial, presumption of innocence, freedom of communication, and freedom of speech.

Deutsche Welle reported that international journalists in Turkey said they believed Yücel's arrest was meant as a warning to them.

German and Turkish leaders have made repeated public references to Yücel’s case. Erdoğan accused Yücel of being a spy and an “agent,” and said that he would ignore demands for the journalist’s release until Germany extradited “PKK terrorists” to Turkey. In an interview published in July, the president told Die Zeit that Yücel was a terrorist because he interviewed a leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said after a meeting with his German counterpart that “a new trend has started among European intelligence agencies where they use journalists as spies," according to the pro-government daily newspaper Sabah.

The European Centre for Press Freedom reported on August 8 that Die Welt would bring Turkey before the European Court of Human Rights over the imprisonment of its reporter. Die Welt’s managing director, Stephanie Kaspar, said the newspaper’s argument would be that it cannot provide independent coverage from Turkey due to Yücel's arrest.

Yücel's lawyer told CPJ that his client was at Silivri Prison in Istanbul and that he was in good mental and physical health but had been kept in isolation since his arrest. Only his lawyers and immediate family were allowed to visit, the lawyer said.

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