Detained journalist Sedef Kabaş faces a potential prison sentence of over 12 years for "insulting the president" and "insulting a public official". Her first hearing is scheduled for 11 March 2022.
This statement was originally published on bianet.org on 15 February 2022.
Sedef Kabaş has been under arrest since January 22 for “insulting the president” and “insulting public officials.”
A court has rejected journalist Sedef Kabaş’s request for her release. Facing up to 12 years in prison for “insulting the president” and “insulting a public official because of their duty,” Kabaş was remanded in custody on January 22.
Reviewing the application of Kabaş’s attorney, Uğur Poyraz, the İstanbul 36th Penal Court of First Instance ruled today (February 15) that Kabaş’s arrest should continue. The first hearing in the case is scheduled to take place on March 11.
Kabaş was arrested because of her remarks during a live TV program on January 14. The indictment against the journalist was accepted late yesterday, February 14.
The indictment was prepared by the Press Crimes Bureau of the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Türkşad Kunthan Uçuk, the prosecutor in the case, graduated from university in 2018 and was appointed as a prosecutor four months ago.
The indictment refers to President and Justice and Development PArty (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the “plaintiff”, and Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu and Minister of Transport Adil Karaismailoğlu as the “aggrieved” parties.
The indictment also cites seven irrelevant ECtHR (European Court of Human Rights) verdicts, while ignoring the European court’s three verdicts about “insulting the president.”
While Kabaş faces from 1 year and 5 months to 8 years and 2 months in prison for “insulting the President”, she faces a total of 2 years and 4 months to 4 years and 8 months for “insulting public officials”.
With the indictment now having been accepted by the court, Kabaş will face up to 12 years and 10 months in prison if charged on the aforementioned offenses.
While the court has not yet set the date for the hearing, the request of Kabaş’s lawyer, Uğur Poyraz, for her release is still pending.
What happened?
Journalist Sedef Kabaş was arrested on January 22 for “insulting the President” because of her words during a live broadcast a week ago.
“There is a famous saying, ‘A crowned head will get wiser.’ But we see that this isn’t the reality. There is also a saying that is the exact opposite: ‘When cattle go into a palace, they don’t become the king; the palace becomes a barn’,” Kabaş said during a program on TELE1 TV on January 14.
A week later, she posted the second quote on her Twitter and Instagram accounts as a “Circassian proverb,” replacing the word “cattle” with “ox.”
Shortly afterwards, at around 2 a.m. on Saturday, she was detained during a police raid. Hours later, a penal judgeship of peace remanded her in custody.
Read the article in Turkish
