Lawyers Veysel Ok and Barış Oflas from the Association for Media and Law Studies Association made an application with priority claim at the Constitutional Court (AYM) for journalists Idris Sayılğan and Nedim Türfent. The applications underlined that the journalists were exposed to discrimination due to their news coverage focused on the Kurdish Question as well as their work at Dicle News Agency.
Sayılğan is arrested pending trial due to ‘illegal organization membership’ since October 2016 and Türfent is arrested since May 2016. The application for the journalists underlined that their rights on the ‘discrimination ban,’ ‘right to personal safety and freedom,’ ‘right to fair trial,’ ‘mistreatment ban,’ ‘right to protection of privacy’ and ‘right to freedom of expression’ protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) were violated.
The application was made without awaiting the results of the appeal court decree on the 8-year 9-month imprisonment sentence against Türfent, issued by Hakkari 2nd Assize Court on 15 December 2017 due to ‘illegal organization membership.’ “We have directly applied to the Constitutional Court with the opinion that the Court of Appeals has not made a decision on the objection against the arrest for a long time, therefore will probably not made a decision anytime soon,” lawyer Ok stated on their application.
18.07.2018
bianet.org