MEDIA MONITORING DATABASE
Abbas Yalçın – trial for “insulting the President of the Republic”
RELATED PERSON OR INSTITUTION
Abbas Yalçın
CITY
İstanbul
YEAR OF INTERFERENCE
2016
LAST UPDATED
05/12/2019
TYPE OF STATEMENT
Political
MEDIUM
Print Media
Newspaper
THE TITLE OF WHOSE RIGHT IS INTERFERED
Journalist
RIGHTS GUARANTEED UNDER THE RIGHT OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Right to Impart Information and Ideas
TYPE OF INTERFERENCE
Judicial Interference
Criminal Courts
Approval of the indictment and initiating the prosecution
THE LEGAL GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE
Turkish Penal Code
Art. 299

The-then editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper Can Dündar and its responsible manager, Abbas Yalçın have been standing trial for “insulting the President of the Republic” by the 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance of İstanbul. They are being tried due to the news article addressing the statement of PKK leaders Cemil Bayık, that is titled “Operasyonlar durursa, savaşı durdururuz (If the operations stop, we will stop the war)” published on August 11, 2015. The indictment has been accepted on February 10, 2016. Yalçın, facing up to four years and eight months in prison, demanded that the case should be dropped as the four-month trial period was exceeded.

The court decided to evaluate his defense in the trial adjourned until January 16 and the court decided to wait for the execution of arrest warrant against Dündar (5 December).