Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) reported the findings after the monitoring of 71 lawsuits since June with the title, “Justice Monitoring Report: Freedom of Expression Cases in Turkey.”
According to the information revealed with the report, defendants in 38 percent of the lawsuits are arrested in remand, violating international standards. More than half of arrested defendants are in prison for longer than a year. 77 percent of the cases involve news and columns written, interviews made, photos taken and meetings with news resources by the defendants as evidence for charges. 24 percent of the cases involve social media posts as evidence for crimes.
72 percent of the charges imposed against the defendants are terror charges. The report further includes additional legal opinions on human rights violations during the prosecutions. Notions like unlawful arrests, long arrest periods, forced absence of defendants during hearings, handcuffed defendants standing before court judges, lack of privacy during meetings and the unkind attitude of the court council were evaluated from the perspective of universal principles of prosecution.
For the full report; https://medyavehukuk.org/adalet-gozlem-raporu.pdf
23.01.2019
medyavehukuk.org