Defendants: Meşale Tolu, Birol Kurt, Deniz Havuç, Emre Altunkaya, Fırat Çağla, Serkan Okatan, +21 others

Media Outlet and Position: ETHA – Journalist, Translator

Accusations: Making terrorist propaganda; Membership of a terrorist organization

Possible sentence: up to 15 years

Court: İstanbul 29. High Criminal Court

Case Background: 

Meşale Tolu, a translator at the left-wing news agency Etkin Haber Ajansı (ETHA), was arrested on May 5, 2017, and faces up to 15 years in prison on charges of membership of a terrorist organization and making propaganda for a terrorist organization. Tolu, who was born in Germany to parents from Turkey and became a German citizen in 2007, relinquishing her Turkish citizenship, was taken ınto custody on April 30, 2017, amid a crackdown on socialist organizations in Turkey. In December she was released after the second hearing along with 5 others, who were in pre-trial detention for 8 months.

She is reportedly accused of links to the outlawed Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP). At the hearing on April 26, Meşale’s case with 18 defendants was merged with another case that has nine defendants. All defendants asked for their acquittal on charges, as well as removal of security check and travel ban.

While the court lifted the security check under which each defendant had to come to the court in Istanbul every Monday to sign a register, it did not remove the travel ban on defendants.

Meşale Tolu is in Turkey at the moment with her child, who is a student of a primary school in Germany, but she cannot return to Germany with her child because of the travel ban.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for October 16, 2018.

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