MEDIA MONITORING DATABASE
Oda TV News Chief Barış Terkoğlu – The trial for “insult”
RELATED PERSON OR INSTITUTION
Barış Terkoğlu
CITY
İstanbul
YEAR OF INTERFERENCE
2017
LAST UPDATED
24/10/2018
TYPE OF STATEMENT
Political
MEDIUM
Internet
Internet News Portal
THE TITLE OF WHOSE RIGHT IS INTERFERED
Chief Editor
RIGHTS GUARANTEED UNDER THE RIGHT OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Right to Impart Information and Ideas
TYPE OF INTERFERENCE
Judicial Interference
Criminal Courts
Decision of acquittal
THE LEGAL GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE
Turkish Penal Code
Art. 125/3

Oda TV website News Director Barış Terkoğlu is standing trial for allegedly insulting Nureddin Yıldız, the author of the Milli Gazete and the Chairperson of the Social Tissue Foundation, due to his news article on Yıldız’s “fetvas” which states that “children can get married after the age of six”. The trial began on 28 November 2017 at the Istanbul Anatolian 65th Criminal Assize Court. The journalist Terkoğlu, who was facing 2 years and 8 months of imprisonment, stated in his defense that a widespread censorship was applied in order to prevent the words of Yıldız from reaching the public and that the 18 news stories published in the last three years on the Odatv website had their share. “Even the news of this indictment is banned,” he said. The trial will continue on 14 December 2018.

At the hearing on 14 December 2018, the court considered the “pervert” interpretation as a reaction to an unjust act and decided that “there was no place for punishment”.