03/01/2024 | Writer: Selma Koçak
Journalists Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar, against whom a lawsuit was filed on the allegation of “making the police beat themselves”, will appear before the judge on January 9. The complaint against the police officers resulted in a judgment of nonsuit.
Journalists, including KaosGL.org editor-in-chief Yıldız Tar, were beaten and detained in front of cameras and handcuffed behind their backs in Ankara on July 5, in 2022 when they went to attend a press conference for 16 journalists arrested in Diyarbakır. While a decision of non-prosecution was issued against the police officers, the images of torture captured by surveillance cameras were not included in the indictment.
The indictment did not include video footage
According to the news coverage reported by MLSA’s Hayri Demir, at the end of the investigation, an indictment was prepared against the journalists for “violation of Law No. 2911 on Meetings and Demonstrations”. The video footage of the moments when the journalists were beaten and arrested was not included in the indictment. In the indictment, which includes the statements of Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar, the journalists stated that they were beaten and detained. Even the fact that Yükler had called a journalist friend during her detention and had asked her to take care of her cat, which was at home, was part of the indictment, no assessment was made regarding the ill-treatment of the journalists, as reflected in the report on investigating the crime scene and the surveillance footage.
It is claimed that “the journalists acted with the aim of creating so-called victimization” within the scope of the crime scene report
It was claimed that journalists adopted an attitude “devoid of good intentions and with the aim of creating so-called victimization” by confronting the security forces, within the framework of the crime scene report.
In the crime scene report it was also defended that the handcuffing of the journalists behind their backs was part of “preventing them from harming themselves”. In the continuation of the report it was claimed that the journalists’ aim was “to reduce the moral motivation of the police officers and to render the law enforcement officers incapable of performing their duties by pacifying them.”
Tags: human rights, media
