ECHR Taking Up Baskaya Case

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will on October 3 Tuesday sit to evaluate the application of Turkish writer Fikret Baskaya who charges that in a 2000 trial and sentence to prison in Turkey his freedom of expression and fair trial rights were violated.

An author for the Ozgur Bakis [Free View] newspaper which later dissolved under continuous pressure, Baskaya was found guilty for “separatist propaganda” on grounds of an article he wrote for the journal in 1999. His application is based on articles 10 and 6/1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Several years after Baskaya was sentenced, the renown State Security Courts which often harbored military officers on the bench and one of which passed his verdict, were abolished. They were replaced, instead by the Specialized High Criminal Courts.

Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law regulating the offence of “separatist propaganda” was, meanwhile, abolished under the scope of the European Union reforms. (EO/II/YE)