MEDIA MONITORING DATABASE
Yakup Şimşek – trial for “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order”
RELATED PERSON OR INSTITUTION
Yakup Şimşek
CITY
İstanbul
YEAR OF INTERFERENCE
2018
LAST UPDATED
04/11/2019
TYPE OF STATEMENT
Political
MEDIUM
Print Media
Newspaper
THE TITLE OF WHOSE RIGHT IS INTERFERED
Other
RIGHTS GUARANTEED UNDER THE RIGHT OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Right to Impart Information and Ideas
TYPE OF INTERFERENCE
Judicial Interference
Criminal Courts
Sentence to imprisonment
THE LEGAL GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE
Turkish Penal Code
Art. 309

The 26th High Criminal Court of İstanbul, with the decision dated 16 February 2018,  sentenced Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan, Nazlı Ilıcak, Fevzi Yazıcı, Yakup Şimşek and Şükrü Tuğrul Özşengül to aggravated life sentences for “overthrowing the constitutional order through violence and force”. Defendant Murat Tilbet Sanlıman was acquitted.

In the trial, where journalists Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak were previously sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment on charge of “attempting to abolish the constitutional order”, the second hearing at the court of appeal was held at the 2nd Penal Chamber of İstanbul Regional Court of Justice on October 2.

The 26th High Criminal Court of İstanbul decided to the continuation of the detention of Yakup Şimşek (8 October 2019)

Fevzi Yazıcı, the visual director of the Zaman newspaper, and the marketing director of the newspaper, Yakup Şimşek had been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment and the Supreme Court issued an order for them to be tried for “membership in a terrorist organisation”. Yazıcı and Şimşek were sentenced to 11 years and 3 months of imprisonment for “membership in a terrorist organisation”. Samanyolu TV-programmer Şükrü Tuğrul Özşengül was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment (4 November).