Investigations and cases are opened one after another against Sendika.Org Editor and Halkın Sesi News Editor Ali Ergin Demirhan after the newspaper published headlines containing the words “Murderer” and “Palace.” Demirhan will appear before a judge at 9.30 on 26 May on charges of “making terrorist propaganda”

Turkish prosecutors have rapidly opened three different investigations into Halkın Sesi (The Voice of the People), the sister publication of Sendika.Org, on charges of making “terrorist propaganda,” in the latest example of the growing climate of censorship, pressure, probes, detentions and arrests fostered by the increasingly authoritarian Palace and Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

As a result of the investigations, Halkın Sesi Acting News Editor Ali Ergin Demirhan, who is also a Sendika.Org editor, will appear before a judge on 26 May at 9.30 at the Istanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan to face charges of “terrorist propaganda” on account of the newspaper’s criticisms of the government’s bellicose policies which have resulted in massacres in the southeast.

In the first investigation, prosecutors opened a case against Halkın Sesi for its lead story in its 247^th edition (16-29 December 2015), which was titled “May there be no one left who hasn’t heard this voice and recognized this murderer,” and carried a story on the inside pages about the military sieges in Cizre and Sur and the resistance to the attacks.

“The rising sound you hear from behind the trenches in Sur and Cizre is our voice,” said the lead story which was deemed to include terrorist propaganda by the prosecutor’s office. “It is our voice, rising against war and fascism at Gezi and in Soma, Kobanê, Suruç and Ankara. Everyone knows who the murderer is that has turned that side of the border as well as this one into a lake of fire to preserve his power. Everyone knows that the murderer’s end will come when the peoples resist shoulder to shoulder.”

The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office also opened a case at the 14^th Court of Serious Crimes for “praising crime and criminals,” “inciting people to crime” and “conducting terrorist propaganda.”

Demirhan and colleague Çağlar Özbilgin are also the subject of two other investigations.

Prosecutors’ sensitivity to the ‘Palace’

All the investigations share charges that stem from the words “Murderer” or “Palace” in the headline and news pieces on the Kurdish problem in the inside pages. Some of the content that is subject to charges of “PKK propaganda” even include sports stories on Amedspor, a football club from Diyarbakır that attracted attention for a fairy-tale cup run this season.

In the indictment for the case to be heard on 26 May, the prosecutor declared a full 28 pages of the newspaper to constitute “PKK propaganda,” even though only two pages addressed the Kurdish problem, with the others covering stories related to the societal opposition’s resistance in the fields of nature, the city, women and labor.

“All of the news and content in the newspaper is overtly aimed at legitimizing, sanctifying and praising PKK actions,” the indictment alleged. “Publishing such content cannot be deemed to fall within the boundaries of freedom of thought and expression or freedom of the press.”

Cases opened after blocking web access deemed insufficient

Next to the website of the Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which has been shuttered 40 times since July 2015, Sendika.Org has been closed the second most by Turkish authorities at 11 times.

Prosecutors, however, have now assumed the mantle from the Telecommunications Directorate, which is responsible for blocking access to websites, and begun launching investigations into Halkın Sesi.

The publications deemed by the prosecutor to be “complete terrorist propaganda” are the product of an editorial line that, since the beginning, has approached the uncompromising opposition against the AKP government and the continuing acts of resistance on both sides of the Euphrates as part of a whole as well as the acts of resistance from Gezi to Kobanê, Cerattepe to the trenches and Soma to the Hevsel Gardens within a common framework.

The media of resistance will not silenced

Workers for Sendika.Org and Halkın Sesi will be at the Çağlayan Courthouse on 26 May at 9.30. Demirhan will first appear before the judge as part of the first case before providing testimony in the third investigation.

A press statement will subsequently be issued in front of the courthouse at 12.30 on the growing oppression directed toward the media of resistance, during which details from the newspaper’s defense will be shared with the public.

Sendika.Org