MEDIA MONITORING DATABASE
Reyhan Çapan – Trial for “not publishing correction and reply properly”
RELATED PERSON OR INSTITUTION
Reyhan Çapan
CITY
İstanbul
YEAR OF INTERFERENCE
2015
LAST UPDATED
15/05/2015
TYPE OF STATEMENT
Political
MEDIUM
Print Media
Newspaper
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
Imposing the fines
THE LEGAL GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE
Press Law
Art. 18

On September 24, 2014, Adana 3rd Penal Court of Peace ruled for a correction for the news report with the title “Child Murderers” published on the issue of Özgür Gündem daily newspaper which was closed by a decree in 2016, dated June 17, 2014.

The newspaper published the correction text on October 23, 2014 with the title “Correction and Apology.” However the prosecutor’s office prepared an indictment against the then Editor-in Chief Reyhan Çapan and the Co-Publisher Eren Keskin on the grounds that the correction had not been published properly. The prosecutor accused Keskin and Çağan of violating articles  18/1-2c and 3 of the Press Law.

İstanbul 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance sentenced Reyhan Çapan and Eren Keskin to 50 thousand lira of fine. For Keskin, the court rule for deferment of the announcement of the verdict.

The 19th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation reversed the jugment for Çapan on grounds that jurisdiction procedures were violated. The trial restarted on June 16, 2022. In the second hearing on November 22, 2022, the claimant party requested Reyhan Çapan to be given a penalty.

The court announced its jugement in the third hearing on March 15, 2023 and sentenced Çapan to 41 thousand 666 lira of fine and that the correction should be published in two newspapers with a daily circulation of more than 100 thousand with the costs to be born by the publisher. The announcement of the verdict was deferred (March 15).