Turkey's top constitutional body on Friday ruled for the second time that the rights of a Turkish journalist jailed in the wake of the failed coup over his links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) had been violated while in detention.
The Constitutional Court had in January ruled that Şahin Alpay and fellow journalist and academic Mehmet Altan should be released on the grounds that their rights had been violated.
But the lower criminal courts hearing their cases defied the decision and they remain in jail. It remains to be seen if on this occasion the lower court will respond to the ruling by the higher court.
The court's decision was criticized by the government, saying the Constitutional Court overstepped its authority and acted as an appeals court.
Mehmet Altan was on February 16 handed a life sentence on charges of links to the FETÖ, along with his brother Ahmet, also a writer and former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Taraf daily that acted as the mouthpiece of sham trials launched by the FETÖ, and veteran journalist Nazlı Ilıcak.
In a separate case, Alpay remains on trial, also charged with links to the failed coup and facing life in jail if convicted. He was arrested shortly after the failed coup and remanded in pre-trial detention in late July 2016.
Anadolu Agency reported that after the January court ruling, Alpay applied to the Constitutional Court for a second time which again ruled by a majority vote Friday his rights had been violated.
A similar application by Mehmet Altan would be examined at a later date, the agency added. The court said that Alpay should be paid 20,000 lira ($5,100) in compensation.
The latest ruling comes as the European Court of Human Rights is scheduled on March 20 to rule on the cases of Alpay and Mehmet Altan who both appealed to the Strasbourg court.
Turkey is a member of the Council of Europe rights watchdog, of which the court is a part, and is thus obliged to implement its judgments. The Council of Europe's chief Thorbjorn Jagland also expressed concern after lower courts refused to release Alpay and Altan, saying such decisions were "binding" otherwise "the rule of law will be undermined."
Alpay, a left-wing militant turned liberal active in the press since the early 1980s, was detained on July 31, 2016, along with other columnists of the now-defunct Zaman daily, the main newspaper of the FETÖ's once-sprawling media empire. In a court hearing in September, Alpay dismissed accusations that he was part of the FETÖ and only wrote for the newspaper because there were no other job offers and he needed the money. He said that he had "no idea" that the FETÖ, which he described as the Gülen Movement named after its leader Fetullah Gülen, was involved in anything illegal.
The terrorist group faces a new barrage of trials after the July 15 coup attempt, its latest bid to seize power through its infiltrators. The group is accused of running media outlets to vindicate its actions and orchestrating defamation campaigns against the group's critics. FETÖ once wielded considerable clout in the media where it ran TV stations and newspapers that spread the group's propaganda. Most were closed down as part of the crackdown on the FETÖ and were handed to trustees as the legal processes against the group's members commenced.
source:
https://www.dailysabah.com/investig...n-favor-of-journalist-arrested-for-feto-links
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There is a lot of attention to the Afrin operation, but I think it's equally important that we keep an eye on the ongoing cases in our own society.
Especially the cases like this. If the rule of law isn't being respected then our society is going backwards. Regardless of what RTE says or wants us to believe.
I read the article and especially the part where the Alpay mentions he needed money which is why he wrote as a journalist shows that people might be innocent and if that is the case then the government needs to show fucking proper redemption and pay more than 100 times the compensation for messing up these peoples lives forever!
