A 13-year prison sentence has been imposed by a prosecutor on Haci Bogatekin, owner and editor of Turkish fortnightly Gerger Firat for an article accusing another local prosecutor of bias. A four-and-a-half-year sentence was also requested for the editor of a website that posted the article, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
Bogatekin’s December 2 court appearance was the seventh time he has gone before a judge in Gerger, in the southeastern province of Adiyaman, in this case, in which he is charged with trying to influence the course of a trial and with insulting and defaming Sadullah Ovacikli, a local prosecutor.
“This is a disgrace,” Paris-based RSF said. “Bogatekin has already spent 109 days in detention because of this case. “What he is alleged to have done in no way justifies this treatment, which is clearly motivated by a desire to punish him for criticising a prosecutor who abused his authority and attacked press freedom.”
The case dates back to January, when Ovacikli summoned Bogatekin and threatened him in connection with an editorial titled “Feto and Apo” referring to an influential Islamist community linked to religious leader Fethullah “Feto” Gülen, and the rivalry between Gülen’s movement and Kurdish separatists for popular support. The editorial also accused the Turkish army— seen by Turks as the guardian of the republic’s secular values—of abandoning the towns to the influence of the religious communities.
Cumali Badur is facing 4 years and 6 months in prison for publishing Ovacıklı’s threat to Boğatekin for writing about the possibility of a relationship between Gülen and him on the internet site gergerim.com, according to press freedom monitor, BIANET.
Bogatekin published the threats made against him by Ovacikli, at the same time claiming that he had evidence that the prosecutor was linked to Gülen’s movement, which has several million members and sympathisers in Turkey, according to RSF.
Bogatekin also filed a complaint against Ovacikli before the justice ministry and the High Council for the Judiciary (HSYK). But then, on April 13, he was placed in pre-trial detention on the charge of insulting and defaming Ovacikli and was not released until July 30.
Despite Bogatekin’s request, the judge presiding the December 2 hearing, Aysegül Simsek, ruled that there was no need to await a legal report on the status of his complaint against Ovacikli. She scheduled the next hearing for February 5.
