Türkiye: RSF condemns the judicial harassment of journalist Baris Terkoglu, who risks a third prison term

These are the fifth and sixth trials for the investigative journalist and editorialist Baris Terkoglu, a regular contributor to Cumhuriyet (“Republic”) and Halk TV (“People”). This time, he will be tried by the Istanbul Criminal Court for both cases, which start on 25 February. Targeted by two Istanbul public prosecutors, he faces up to six years and four months in prison for “insult” and “defamation” in two new cases. These proceedings come on top of two other cases still underway, one of which ended in a first-instance sentencing of two years in prison. What’s more, he already served time for two previous cases — and was acquitted in both. 

“Baris Terkoglu, who has already been unjustly imprisoned twice in Türkiye, is one of the few journalists who dares to cover the shortcomings and bad practices in the judicial system and the government. He is paying a price for his work that is far too high. It is unacceptable for a journalist to be constantly threatened with imprisonment in retaliation for their reporting. This instrumentalisation of the justice system and judicial harassment of media professionals must come to an end.” 

Erol Onderoglu,

RSF Representative in Türkiye

In one of the two cases opening on 25 February, the journalist faces up to four years in prison. He has been accused of defamation by the former public prosecutor of Istanbul's Asian Side, Ismail Ucar, for an opinion piece published in 2022 in the daily Cumhuriyet. Entitled “İmamoğlu'nu ortadan kaldırmaya hazırlanıyorlar”” (“They are trying to eliminate Imamoglu”), the article discussed political control of judicial affairs and, more specifically, the alleged pressure put on an Istanbul court judge to convict the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, a member of the opposition CHP (Republican People's Party). In the second case, Baris Terkoglu faces two years and four months' imprisonment for “insulting” the public prosecutor of the Istanbul Court of Appeal, Hadi Salihoglu, due to his exposé on the prosecutor’s potential links with a criminal group. 

Baris Terkoglu is also one of nine journalists on trial for questioning President Erdogan's former lawyer, Dogan Inal, who was accused of corruption in the book “Metastaz 2" (“Metastasis 2”), which Baris Terkoglu co-authored with Baris Pehlivan. While these two journalists are under attack for their book, seven other journalists — Nevzat Cicek and Can Bursali, editor-in-chief and  reporter, respectively, for news site Independent Turkçe; Dogan Akin, editor-in-chief of news site T24; journalists Gokmen Karadag, Fatih Portakal, Can Ozcelik and Aysenur Arslan — are on trial in the same case for referencing the corruption affair in their work. The trial will continue on 29 May.

On 2 May 2024, The journalist was sentenced in a court of first instance to two years' imprisonment for another opinion piece in Cumhuriyet. The legal proceedings followed a complaint by the then-Deputy Minister of Justice and current Istanbul Prosecutor General, Akin Gürlek, for “exposing a counter-terrorist agent to the threat of terrorist organisations.” Yet the journalist had simply published a review of the landmark rulings Akin Gürlek had made when he presided over one of Istanbul's assize courts. The journalist’s lawyers have lodged an appeal.

23 months behind bars 

In February 2011, when Baris Terkoglu was news director of news site Odatv, he and several of the site’s contributors were incarcerated after being targeted by a police operation orchestrated by magistrates that belonged to a religious movement started by Imam Fethullah Gülen. Unjustly accused of belonging to the illegal organisation Ergenekon, Baris Terkoglu was released after 19 months behind bars. All the journalists targeted by the case were acquitted in 2017. 

On 5 March 2020, he was jailed again, along with five other journalists — Hülya Kilinç, Baris Pehlivan, Murat Agirel, Mehmet Ferhat Celik and Aydin Keser — for publishing images of the funeral of an agent of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, or MIT) killed in Libya. The journalists were accused of “disclosing top-secret information” and “violating the Intelligence Services Act.” After four months in detention, Baris Terkoglu was released on 24 June 2020, and acquitted on 9 September 2020. 

Criticising the justice system remains taboo

In Türkiye, covering court cases has become so difficult, journalists must go to taboo lengths: five journalists from the critical Halk TV channel will appear before the Istanbul magistrates' court on 4 March for broadcasting an interview with a legal expert recorded without his knowledge as part of an investigation on a topic of serious public interest.. The outlet’s editor-in-chief Suat Toktas has been in prison since 30 January.