According to the lawyers’ association MLSA, the allegations against Deniz Yücel relate to the content of articles he wrote Photo: picture alliance
From BZ/dpa
A Turkish court has issued an arrest warrant for journalist Deniz Yücel.
The decision came in a trial in which Yücel was accused of insulting the president and denigrating the Turkish state and judiciary, his lawyer Veysel Ok said on Thursday. The “Welt” correspondent lives in Germany and was not present at the trial.
According to the MLSA lawyers’ association, the allegations against him relate to the content of articles he wrote. In it he called Erdogan a “putschist”. The writers’ association PEN calls for the immediate cessation of the proceedings against their co-spokesman Yücel. The trial in Istanbul is scheduled to resume on October 17.
From February 2017 to February 2018, Yücel was detained without charge in the Silivri high-security prison west of Istanbul. Only after a long political tug of war between Ankara and Berlin was Yücel released and able to leave the country – at the same time charges were brought. In July 2020 he was sentenced in absentia to around two years and ten months in prison for terrorist propaganda for the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK.
In January 2022, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for detaining Yücel and ruled that the actions violated his human rights to liberty and security and freedom of expression.