Trial Monitoring of People V. Cansu Pişkin
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Trial Monitoring of People v. Cansu Pişkin (Turkey 2019) July 2019 Jun Stephen J. Rapp Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues ABOUT THE AUTHORS The Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic works to advance human rights around the world and to train the next generation of strategic advocates for social justice. The clinic works in partnership with civil society organizations and communities to carry out human rights investigations, legal and policy analysis, litigation, report- writing and advocacy. Ambassador Stephen J. Rapp is a Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Prevention of Genocide. He also serves as Chair of the Commission for International Justice & Accountability (CIJA). From 2009 to 2015, he was Ambassador-at-Large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the US State Department. Rapp was the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009 where he led the prosecution of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. From 2001 to 2007, he served as Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he headed the trial team that achieved the first convictions in history of leaders of the mass media for the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Before becoming an international prosecutor, he was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa from 1993 to 2001. ABOUT THE CLOONEY FOUNDATION FOR JUSTICE’S TRIALWATCH INITIATIVE TrialWatch is an initiative of the Clooney Foundation for Justice focused on monitoring and responding to trials around the world that pose a high risk of human rights violations. TrialWatch is global in scope and focused on trials targeting journalists, LGBTQ persons, women and girls, religious minorities, and human rights defenders. It works to expose injustice and rally support to secure justice for defendants whose rights have been violated. 1 E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y Between March and May 2019, TrialWatch monitors under the supervision of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic monitored the trial of Cansu Pişkin, a journalist for the Turkish daily paper, Evrensel, in Istanbul, Turkey. Pişkin was charged with “making a public servant into a target for terrorist organizations” in violation of Section 6(1) of Law No. 3713, otherwise known as the Anti-Terror Law, for publishing the prosecutor’s name in her April 5, 2018 article, “Special Prosecutor for the Bosphorus Students.” On May 7, 2019, the Court convicted Pişkin and sentenced her to 10 months’ imprisonment (with the sentence pronouncement deferred for a period of five years). Ambassador Stephen J. Rapp assigned this trial a grade of D. Grade: D 2 B A C K G R O U N D I N F O R M A T I O N A. POLITICAL & LEGAL CONTEXT Turkey’s record on freedom of expression, criticized by domestic and international organizations for years, has continued to decline since the 2016 attempted coup, with the government routinely arresting and prosecuting journalists and other critics.1 Journalists in particular have been targeted for their work in reporting on and sharing information about government actions, generally charged with terrorism-related offenses under Turkey’s sweeping anti-terror laws. In 2018, the Committee to Protect Journalists called Turkey the world’s “worst jailor of journalists,” with at least 68 journalists jailed for their work and, for the third year in a row, with every journalist imprisoned in Turkey facing anti-state charges.2 While the exact number of journalists in prison in Turkey is unconfirmed, according to the International Press Institute (IPI), as of May 2019, 139 journalists were in prison (counting both those jailed for their work and those jailed on other grounds);3 the Turkish free expression group P24, which monitors and documents trials involving freedom of speech, estimates that 138 journalists are currently in prison.4 Many more have been arrested or charged but not imprisoned; in 2017, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) received reports of the arrest and detention of approximately 300 journalists “on the grounds that their publications contained apologist sentiments regarding terrorism or other ‘verbal act offences’ or for ‘membership’ in terrorist organizations.”5 1 See generally Article 19, Turkey, https://www.article19.org/region/turkey/. Beyond the arrest and prosecution of journalists, the Turkish government has restricted freedom of expression for the public more generally by ordering media blackouts and blocking websites. According to the PEN International, media outlets that do not overtly support the government “face regular legal harassment that drains finances through fines, legal fees and trumped-up tax penalties.” PEN International, I Subscribe Campaign, available at https://pen-international.org/print/6615; see also MLSA, Justice Monitoring Report: Freedom of Expression Trials in Turkey June-December 2018 (2018), available at https://freeturkeyjournalists.ipi.media/wp- content/uploads/2019/01/MLSA_IPI_Trials_Turkey_Jan2019.pdf. And Turkey made 45 percent of global requests to Twitter to remove online content in the first half of 2017. Human Rights Watch, Turkey: Events of 2017 (2017), available at https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/turkey. 2 Committee to Project Journalists, Report, “Hundreds of journalists jailed globally becomes the new normal,” Dec. 31, 2018, available at https://cpj.org/reports/2018/12/journalists-jailed-imprisoned-turkey- china-egypt-saudi-arabia.php. 3 Free Turkey Journalists, home page, available at https://freeturkeyjournalists.ipi.media/. 4 P24, Expression Interrupted, “Journalists in Jail,” available at https://expressioninterrupted.com/census/. 5 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report on the impact of the state of emergency on human rights in Turkey, including an update on the South-East, para. 11 (March 2018), available at https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/TR/2018-03- 19_Second_OHCHR_Turkey_Report.pdf. 3 The Turkish government has frequently used anti-terrorism legislation to target its critics, including journalists; for example, as of July 2018, 57 media workers were on trial for “terrorist propaganda.”6 According to a report from Turkish organization Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) in partnership with IPI and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, of 90 freedom of expression cases monitored in 2018, 72% involved terrorism-related crimes.7 These prosecutions of journalists and critics are taking place in a climate of diminishing judicial independence, where the government has targeted the judiciary by dismissing or arresting numerous prosecutors and judges in recent years.8 After the 2016 attempted coup, 20-25 percent of Turkey’s judges and prosecutors were dismissed, including two members of the constitutional court.9 Although the government claimed to have only dismissed judges associated with the Gülen movement (which the Turkish government considers responsible for the attempted coup), civil society organizations report an increased politicization of Turkey’s judiciary.10 The legal profession more generally has been targeted. As of 2018, according to OHCHR, “570 lawyers had been arrested, 1,480 faced some kind of prosecution, and 79 were sentenced to long-term imprisonment. Moreover, approximately 34 bar associations were shut down on the ground of alleged affiliation to a terrorist organization.”11 1. Turkish Laws Impacting Freedom of Expression and the Right to a Fair Trial The Turkish Constitution recognizes fundamental rights including freedom of expression and opinion. Article 25 provides for freedom of thought and opinion, and Article 26 guarantees freedom of expression, which the Constitution defines as “the 6 Reporters without Borders, “Spate of trials in Turkey on ‘terrorist propaganda’ charges,” Sept. 6, 2018, available at https://rsf.org/en/news/spate-trials-turkey-terrorist-propaganda-charges. 7 MLSA, Justice Monitoring Report: Freedom of Expression Trials in Turkey June-December 2018 (2018), available at https://freeturkeyjournalists.ipi.media/. 8 See International Commission of Jurists, “Turkey: Dismissal of judges and prosecutors tainted by unfairness, says ICJ,” Feb. 4, 2019, available at https://www.icj.org/turkey-dismissal-of-judges-and- prosecutors-tainted-by-unfairness-says-icj/; Reuters, “Turkey sacks 107 judges, prosecutors over links to failed coup: media,” May 5, 2017, available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security- court/turkey-sacks-107-judges-prosecutors-over-links-to-failed-coup-media-idUSKBN1811P4; Article 19, Turkey, https://www.article19.org/region/turkey/. 9 The Economist, “Turkey’s purges are crippling its justice system,” (May 20, 2017), available at https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/05/20/turkeys-purges-are-crippling-its-justice-system. 10 Financial Times, “Turkey says purge of judiciary over after sacking 4,000,” (May 26, 2018), available at https://www.ft.com/content/0af6ebc0-421d-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58; Article 19, XPA (Expression Agenda metric) 2017 country profile: Turkey, Nov. 30, 2017, https://www.article19.org/resources/xpa- 2017-country-profile-turkey/. 11 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report on the impact of the state of emergency on human rights in Turkey, including an update on the South-East, para. 9 (March 2018), available at https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/TR/2018-03 19_Second_OHCHR_Turkey_Report.pdf.