Turkey
Acquitted of one charge, facing three morePosted Oct 20 2007
Al-Jazeera journalist Sinan Kara, has been acquitted of charges for criticizing the army in an article titled “Barracks Party” where he criticized the Turkish army, according to BIANET, a Turkish Network for Monitoring and Covering Media Freedom and Independent Journalism.
The Beyoglu Penal Court in Istanbul ruled that there were “no elements of crime” in the article under Article 301. Article 301, which took effect in 2005, gives legal right to imprison those that denigrate the government of the country, the judicial institution, the military or security organizations.
Kara still has to face three other trials in the near future.
He is currently on trial for an article titled “Justice has become Militarism's Jester”, published in the “Toplumsal Demokrasi” (“Social Democracy”) newspaper on Nov. 20 2006. Kara wrote, “justice has become militarism's jester, that the concepts of 'justice' and 'law' mean 'injustice' in this country.”
“Full-time killers,” in which he criticized the state and the army regarding the bombing in Diyarbakir where 10 people – eight of them children – died, has also landed him in trouble. This case will start on 26 October.
The third article “Isolation Knows No Limits,” about solitary confinement in prisons, will see him go to court on Jan. 30 2008. This last piece was published in the newspaper on Nov. 14 2006. Arzuhan Dogan, the president of the Turkish Association of Industrialists and Business People (T†SIAD;
“Instead of running after new definitions of secularism, it would be better to let Turkey have a regime which promises modern democracy and full freedom of expression.”