Turkey: Sultan Eylem Keleş Handed Suspended Prison Term For “Insulting” Erdoğan In Absentia, Denied Opportunity To Present Defense

Location: Turkey,  Izmir
Date: March 14, 2022

Available in: 🇹🇷 Türkçe

*Updated on May 19, 2022, after the appeal was filed 

Journalist Sultan Eylem Keleş was handed a suspended prison term on March 10, 2022, after a court in İzmir convicted her of “insulting the president” in absentia. Neither Sultan nor her lawyers were present in the courtroom when the verdict was announced nor was she given the opportunity to submit her defense. The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) denounces this verdict and the manner in which it was delivered. We call on the authorities in Turkey to end legal harassment of journalists in attempts to intimidate them into silence.

On May 19, Sultan and the Media and Law Studies Association’s (MLSA) Legal Team, which has been representing her, appealed the prison sentence before the Constitutional Court in Turkey. MLSA has argued that Sultan’s right to a fair trial was violated, according to both, the Turkish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). 

Referring to Sultan’s social media posts, which were deemed criminal by the İzmir court, MLSA argued that “the right to criticize is a natural consequence of freedom of expression,” as enshrined in the Turkish Constitution. The appeal stated that “the stable jurisprudence of the ECHR and the Constitutional Court considers the necessity to not interfere with the right to criticize as a sine qua non of a pluralist democracy, no matter how harsh and hurtful the criticism may be”. 

MLSA also emphasized that the social media posts of the journalist in 2015 were unlawfully revealed by the security forces. Citing the Vedat Şorli’s case as precedent, MLSA argued that “the ECHR, in its assessment of Article 299 of the Turkish Criminal Law (TCK) based on which the applicant was sentenced, decided that the article regulating the offense of insulting the president was not in line with the spirit of the ECHR”.

Şorli was given a suspended sentence of 11 months in prison in 2017 over a caricature and a photograph of President Tayyip Erdogan that he shared on his social media account. The case was later brought to the ECHR and the European top court of human rights, which ruled that Şorli’s detention under this law violated his freedom of expression.

On March 9, 2022, Sultan was taken into custody and briefly detained at the airport in Elazığ, where she had traveled to visit an inmate in prison. She was released on the condition that she would appear before a prosecutor to give her statement. The journalist complied and two days later, the Izmir 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance convicted her in absentia. The court meted out a suspended sentence of one year, two months and 17 days in prison without allowing the journalist the opportunity to submit her defense against the prosecutor’s allegations.

Earlier, Sultan said to CFWIJ that she has yet to be informed which of her social media posts specifically were considered as criminal in the case against her. Thus far, she said, all she knows is that the prosecution based the case on posts she made in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Sultan added that she will be taking the matter before the Constitutional Court as she was denied the right to a fair trial. “Neither me nor my lawyers were heard in court. The verdict was given in my absence, before I could even submit a defense against the prosecutor’s claims.” 

Shortly after being informed of the verdict, the journalist took to Twitter to state that neither she nor her lawyers were heard before the court. She wrote that she had denied the charge of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when she was questioned in Elazığ after being arbitrarily detained at the airport.

Journalist @esultankeles was detained at the Elazığ Airport on March 9th. The court saw it fit to sentence journalist Keleş without hearing the final statements against the prosecutor's opinion by Keleş and her lawyers.

— MLSA (@mlsaturkey) March 11, 2022

This isn’t the first time that Sultan has been subjected to legal harassment. In September 2020, she was sued for reporting on protests by workers of a private tech company, BİMEKS. She was charged with resisting, preventing, and insulting public officials on duty for following the demonstrations after being briefly detained while in the field. The first hearing of this lawsuit against her is due to be held on September 13, 2022, in İstanbul.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism stands in solidarity with Sultan Eylem Keleş and condemns the legal harassment she continues to face in connection with her work. The verdict given in this case flouts her to free speech and must be annulled. We have observed a pattern of misuse of law by state institutions as the Erdoğan government continues its onslaught against the independent press. In the first 10 weeks of 2022 alone, the CFWIJ has followed and reported on more than 30 legal cases against women journalists. In several cases, journalists are forced to face long drawn out trials, wherein the judicial process in and of itself becomes a punishment, for charges based on their reportage. We call on authorities in Turkey to respect journalists’ right to report and citizens’ rights to free speech and information.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.

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