Pro-AKP media boss sues professor for tweeting about censorship of Paradise Papers report

President Erdoğan and S. Albayrak at a ceremony.

Click to read the article in Turkish

Serhat Albayrak, the head of the Turkuvaz Media Group and the brother of Berat Albayrak, former finance minister and the president's son-in-law, demands 100,000 lira for damages from Prof. Yaman Akdeniz of the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD).

The case concerns a Twitter post by Yaman Akdeniz about a court order blocking access to a report on documents about the Albayrak brothers in the Paradise Papers.

Albayrak had previously sued Pelin Ünker, a reporter for daily Cumhuriyet, over the report in question but the court rejected his claims. On March 17, a news article on the Diken news portal about the conclusion of the case was banned by a judgeship, the İFÖD announced.

Prof. Akdeniz quoted Diken's tweet about the ban and called on people to "read and share" the news as it would be banned in four hours. On April 10, a judgeship, at the Request of Serhat Albayrak, ordered a ban on this tweet as well.

After the ruling, Akdeniz asked what Twitter would do as it previously agreed to assign a legal representative in Turkey to comply with new legislation and answered: "1. It will do nothing 2. It will suspend my account for me to remove the tweet. 3. It will remove/make invisible the tweet in Turkey."

Serhat Albayrak filed the case for damages against Akdeniz after this tweet as his attorneys alleged that the professor had intended to "continue to aggrieve our client."

Akdeniz reacted to the compensation lawsuit filed against him, saying "If I will not announce the censorship brought to my post, what will I announce?"

Explaining his objection to the Penal Court of Peace regarding the ban of his post, Akdeniz said, "Our request was not accepted. Now we have brought the issue to the Constitutional Court. In other words, my legal struggle regarding the ban on my post continues. But as if it wasn't enough for me to be censored, they have also filed a lawsuit for compensation."

"Aggrieving" Serhat Albayrak

Serhat Albayrak's lawyers claimed in the complaint that they "exercised their legal rights" regarding Akdeniz's censorship. The complaint stated the following for Akdeniz who had shared the news about the censorship, "In a manner that made fun of these decisions, the posts intended to continue aggrieving our client and caused a violation of personal rights."

Stressing that he will not settle for a compromise, Akdeniz said, "How is Serhat Albayrak aggrieved? I wonder if he can't go out on the street because of a tweet I posted?"

"This report may also get banned"

Stating that he will defend freedom of expression to the fullest and will continue to post on the EngelliWeb portal regarding censorship and access blocks, which are of great concern to the public, Akdeniz continued;

"All the lawsuits filed against Paradise Papers are those that are closely related to the public. It is quite normal that these are reported by the press and inform the public. I will continue to share all kinds of interference with these reports, blocking access and censorship, as a lawyer working on these issues that are closely related to the public.

"I am a lawyer whose tweet was blocked. Albayrak both banned my tweet and filed a lawsuit over it, asking for money. Now maybe a criminal investigation can be opened against me. We are living in Turkey, anything can happen.

"Maybe bianet may also get banned for reporting this. We call this 'blockception.' Policies of intimidation, harassment, and silencing. The desired figure is scary. This is a message of 'Do not report or talk about me'."

(HA/DCE/VK)