Defendants: Hasan Cemal

Media Outlet and Position: T24 – Journalist

Accusations: Making terrorist propaganda; Praising the crime and criminal; Defamation; Inciting public to crime

Possible sentence: 1 year 10 months up to 9 years 4 months

Court: İstanbul 36. High Criminal Court

Case Background:

Hasan Cemal, a prominent journalist and founder of T24 news platform is accused of “making terrorist propaganda”, “praising crime and criminal” and “defamation” over an article published in 2015. Cemal’s article published on T24 was about the Turkish military forces’ presence in Kurdish-populated town Silvan, including interviews with two workers and the town mayor at that time.

Public prosecutors filed an investigation against Cemal in 2018 over the article. The first hearing took place on January 3, 2019, in Istanbul 36. High Criminal Court. During the hearing, Cemal’s lawyer requested the case to be dropped as the term of litigation had exceeded and asked for his client’s acquittal.

A Diyarbakır court ruled incompetence in a former case on the same article in 2016. Rejecting acquittal request, the Istanbul court requested former case file and relevant documents from Diyarbakır court and adjourned the case until April 16.

At April 16-hearing, the prosecutor requested jail sentence for Cemal from one year 10 months up to nine years four months on the charge of “making terrorist propaganda”. The court adjourned the hearing until May 7, accepting the request of Cemal’s lawyer for additional time to prepare the defense statement.

Cemal has faced several other cases on charges of “defamation”, “insulting President” and “making terrorist propaganda”, some of those are still ongoing. Cemal also participated in pro-Kurdish Özgür Gündem solidarity campaign “Editors-on-Watch” and fined 6000 Turkish Liras on the charge of “publicizing statements of a terrorist organization.”

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