Journalist Ozkoray Sentenced Under Article 15

Turkish journalist and writer Erol Ozkoray has been sentenced to a fine of 2,200 YTL (USD 1486) under former penal code article 159 for two articles he wrote that were published in the "İdea Politika" magazine and its online web site.

Ozkoray was on trial for "ridiculing and insulting state institutions" through his articles titled "The Bankruptcy of Turkey" and "Oligarchic Square" which were published in the June 2001 issue of the quarterly magazine.

The Istanbul 2nd High Criminal Court first sentenced Ozkoray to a prison term and then converted this sentence to the monetary fine.

Criticising both the old penal code article 159 and its current form of article 301 after the sentence, Ozkoray said "while there is 301 there cannot be the freedom of opinion which is the base of democracy, therefore there cannot be democracy".

Although Ozkoray's attorney Eren Keskin has appealed against the verdict, the journalist who is the executive editor of the ideapolika.com site is still on trial for two other articles that were published on the site in 2001.

"What use is the army?" and "New barbarians, the Talibans with stripes" had led to Ozkoray's sentencing to a monetary fine of 1,200 YTL (USD 808) but the verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeals that said the change to article 301 in the penal code needed to be taken into account.

A retrial on the charges continues and the journalist is scheduled to testify in that case next month.

Ozkoray is also on trial for separate charges under article 159 for a December 2001 article titled "Turkey is fooling itself" and an interview that was conducted with Reporters Without Frontiers (RSF) Secretary General Robert Menard.

Both he and Menard are charged in this case of "ridiculing and insulting the Republic and the Armed Forces" and face up to 6 years imprisonment each on grounds that the offense was committed twice.

Ozkoray is author of "Totalitarian Turkish Farm", a book published by the Belge publishing house collecting his political articles and dialogues between 1978 and 2006. The 500-page book looks into various issues facing Turkey including the regime itself, the military, corruption, secularism, the Kurdish and Armenian issues, the freedom of press and international affairs.

At current he is working on a two-volume book to be titled "Selections from Idea Politika" with the first volume focusing on Turkey and the second planned to focus on globalization and international relations. (EO/TK/II/YE)