The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for the imprisonment of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday condemned Turkey for the imprisonment in 2017 and 2018 of the former correspondent of the German daily Die Welt, the German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel, a case that had inflamed the relations between Berlin and Ankara.
Mr. Yücel, who had covered for the conservative newspaper the widespread repression after the failed coup in Turkey in July 2016 against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “was remanded and kept in pre-trial detention in the absence of plausible reasons to suspect him of having committed a criminal offence,” the court said in a statement.
“The deprivation of liberty” of the 48-year-old journalist “can be analyzed as an ‘interference’ in the latter’s exercise of his right to freedom of expression”, continues the Pan-European Court. It recalls “that the provisional detention of critical voices creates multiple negative effects, both for the person detained and for society as a whole”.
“Inflicting a measure resulting in a deprivation of liberty (…) inevitably produces a chilling effect on freedom of expression by intimidating civil society and silencing dissenting voices”, further pointed out the judicial arm of the Council of Europe.
Poisoned relations between Berlin and Ankara
The arrest in February 2017 of Deniz Yücel had raised a wave of indignation and mobilization in Germany and poisoned relations between Berlin and Ankara, two countries linked in particular by the presence of three million Turks in Germany.
Finally released in February 2018, Deniz Yücel had been authorized to leave Turkey for Germany, leading to a thaw in relations between the two countries.
In May 2019, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that he had suffered a violation of his right to liberty and security as well as his right to freedom of expression and of the press.
But in July 2020, an Istanbul court sentenced him in absentia to two years, nine months and 22 days in prison for “terrorist propaganda” on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), branded as a “terrorist” group. ” by Ankara and its Western allies, after a trial that had sparked new diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Germany.
Turkey is ranked 153rd in the world press freedom index of the NGO Reporters Without Borders.
The ECHR ordered Ankara to pay 13,300 euros in compensation to Mr. Yücel.
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