A lawsuit was filed against researcher Bülent Şık, after he, in articles for "bianet" and "Cumhuriyet", wrote about research results that were kept secret by the Health Ministry. These results revealed "health-threatening" levels of pesticides and other chemicals in some food and water.
This statement was originally published on bianet.org on 18 April 2025.
Şık was put on trial in 2019 after he revealed the results of a research study conducted by the Health Ministry.
Bülent Şık, a food engineer and a researcher on trial for sharing the Health Ministry’s cancer data with the public, has been acquitted after six years.
During the hearing at the 13th Penal Chamber of the İstanbul Regional Court of Appeals, the prosecutor argued that Şık could not publish the research without the permission of the ministry.
Referring to the protocol between the Health Ministry and Akdeniz University, the prosecutor asked for Şık to be sentenced in accordance with Article 258 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) titled “Disclosure of secrets related to duty.” He demanded 1 to 4 years in prison.
Şık’s lawyer Abbas Yalçın, in his defense against the final opinion, pointed to the Court of Cassation’s decision to overturn the verdict. He said Şık had exercised his constitutional rights. What Şık revealed was not a “state secret,” he argued and demanded Şık’s acquittal.
Announcing its verdict, the court ruled that the İstanbul 2nd Penal Court of First Instance’s sentence of 1 year and 3 months imprisonment imposed in 2019 be lifted.
The court also acquitted Şık of the charge of “revealing a secret related to his duty” since “the act charged is not defined as a crime in the law.”
Background
While working as an academic at Akdeniz University’s Center for Food Safety and Agricultural Research, Bülent Şık took part in a public health study conducted by the Health Ministry.
The research was designed to determine whether there was a relationship between cancer and environmental pollution in provinces in the country with a high incidence of cancer.
The research found the presence of pesticides, heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at “health-threatening” levels in some food and water samples taken from Kocaeli, Kırklareli, Tekirdağ, Edirne and Antalya. Also, lead, aluminum, chromium and arsenic were found in water samples taken from some settlements.
A lawsuit was filed against Şık, after he, in column articles for bianet and Cumhuriyet, revealed the results of the research that was kept secret by the Health Ministry. Şık was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges of “revealing a secret related to his duty” under Article 258 of the Turkish Penal Code. The Court of Cassation overturned the sentence and decided to retry Şık.
Bülent Şık had been dismissed from academia in 2016 with the Statutory Decree No. 677 on the Taking of Certain Measures within the Scope of the State of Emergency for signing the Peace Academics’ declaration “We will not be a party to this crime,” released during the urban conflict in the country’s Kurdih populated regions in 2015-16.
