Defendants: Kasım Zengin, Necat Hizarcı, Sadettin Demirtaş, Muhammet Özkan, Mehmet Kadir Özkara, Cumali Öz, Süleyman Güneş, Kemal Dağdöğen, Özgür Bozkurt, Cemal Tunç, Erdoğan Zamur, İhsan Sinmiş, İrfan Karaca, Kazım Göçer, Mahmut Abay, Mehmet Emin Sümeli, Musa Kaya, Mürsel Demir, Polat Arslan, Uğur Selman Kelekçiler, Derviş Avras

Media Outlet and Position: Gün Matbaa (Printing Press) – Executives and staff

Status: Imprisoned (names in bold)

Facility: Silivri Prison, İstanbul

Accusations: Membership of a terrorist organization; Aiding and abetting a terrorist organization

Possible sentence: up to 261 years (total sentencing)

Court: İstanbul 26. High Criminal Court

Case Background: 

The buildings of Pro-Kurdish Özgürlükçü Demokrasi newspaper and the printing press Gün Matbaa in Istanbul were raided by police on March 28, 2018. A government trustee was appointed both for the newspaper and printing press on the same day until these were shut down by a decree law (No.701) in June.

At least 20 printing press workers of Gün Matbaa were arrested on the day of the raid along with the owner of printing press Gün Matbaa, Kazım Zengin. Prosecutors filed two separate cases against daily Özgürlükçü Demokrasi and Gün Matbaa.

Gün Matbaa was printing and distributing pro-Kurdish newspapers like Özgürlükçü Demokrasi and Welat along with many other books and journals. All publications printed by Gün Matbaa were ordered to be collected by a court. Following Gün Matbaa’s close down, daily Welat had to stop publication due to difficulties in finding a printing press willing to print the newspaper.

The first hearing of Gün Matbaa trial took place on September 18, 2018. Eight of the defendants were released but remain subject to a travel ban.

While nine of the defendants are accused of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization,” 12 defendants are facing charges of “being a member of a terrorist organization”. The indictment cited the content of the publications and ongoing cases against those publications’ writers and editors as a justification of the takeover.

During the hearing on December 3, 2018, the owner Kasım Zengin said in his defense that every single publication by Gün Matbaa has been submitted to the Ministry of Culture. “We have not even received one single warning earlier,” Zengin said.

After the hearing, three more staff members, Kazım Göçer, Mürsel Demir and Polat Arslan, were released. The remaining staff members and the owner Zengin remain in jail, pending trial since March 28.

During the hearing on January 14, 2019, the prosecutor asked a total of 261 years imprisonment for 21 defendants in the case.

In the February 11-hearing, four more members of the staff were released on probation – Cemal Tunç, Mehmet Emin Sümeli, Musa Kaya, Uğur Selman Kelekçiler – remaining five of staff in prison, pending trial.

Due to the absence of respective judicial panel, a temporary judge panel has attended the hearing on February 11.

The court adjourned the hearing until March 11. 

On the other hand, the Özgürlükçü Demokrasi newspaper’s publisher, İhsan Yaşar, was arrested on March 28, following the police raid on the daily’s offices ordered by the chief public prosecutor’s office. It was followed by the arrest of İshak Yasul, the managing editor of Özgürlükçü Demokrasi newspaper on March 30.

On December 14, Yasul was convicted to one year ten months 15 days on “terrorist propaganda”.

On April 4, 2018, seven more editors and reporters of the newspaper were taken into custody in relation to the same case. While three of them were released on bail, editors Mehmet Ali Çelebi, Reyhan Hacıoğlu, Hicran Urun and reporter Pınar Tarlak were put in pretrial detention. Reporter Tarlak was released on bail after the hearing on September 12.

On November 29, 2019, Çelebi was sentenced to one year six months.

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