Court dismisses Albayrak's suit against law professor over 'Paradise Papers' articles
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President Erdoğan and Serhat Albayrak
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The İstanbul 7th Penal Court of First Instance has dismissed a claim for damages by Serhat Albayrak, the head of Turkuvaz Media Group, against Prof. Yaman Akdeniz for sharing an article about the Paradise Papers leak.
Serhat Albayrak, the brother of Berat Albayrak, the former finance minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son-in-law, alleged that his personel rights were offended and demanded 100,000 lira (11.570 USD) for immaterial damages.
Recalling the access blocking orders issued by penal judgeships of peace for news articles about Albayrak and Paradise Papers, attorney Hakkı Ceyhun Pınar claimed Akdeniz offended Albayrak's personal rights by sharing the content of the orders.
The defense
Making his defense, Akdeniz noted that he is a lawyer and an active social media user and said he shared the court order for with the public.
A member of the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD), a group monitoring web censorship, Akdeniz said, "I've been actively using Twitter for years and have been often informing the public especially about the internet, freedom of expression, censorship and decisions of access block and content removal.
"I would also like to state that no lawsuits have been filed against me before, and my works and posts have not been subject to trial before, during the legal struggle I waged for the development of internet and freedom of expression standards, and during the process of informing the public.
"In fact, this first case is about one of my public disclosures. When I saw on Diken.com.tr that access to a report of a case that Serhat Albayrak lost was blocked, I shared this on my Twitter account. Later, access to this tweet was blocked upon an application by the plaintiff. I again shared the access block on my tweet.
"The objection I filed against the access block was rejected by the judgeship. I have filed an individual application with the Constitutional Court. The tweets subject to the case have no relation to offending personal rights. I demand the dismissal of the case."
Announcing its verdict after Akdeniz's defense, the court dismissed the case. It will issue its justified ruling later.
Serhat Albayrak's attorney Hakkı Ceyhun Pınar and Prof. Akdeniz and his attorneys Buse Karataş, Sevgi Kalan Güvercin and Dilara Alpan were present in the courtroom.
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Turkey Representative Erol Önderoğlu also followed the hearing.
"The purpose is intimidation"
Speaking to bianet after the hearing, Akdeniz said, "The case was all about eliminating contentious judicial decisions about news reports about the Paradise Papers, publication of which is in the public interest.
"This type of lawsuits are defined as 'strategic lawsuit against public participation' by international civil society organizations.
"The primary purpose of the lawsuits filed by abusing legal proceedings is not to win the case but to intimidate and silence people who inform the public, especially journalists and academics like me, on issues that particularly concern the public."
Paradise Papers and lawsuitsParadise Papers, comprising approximately 13,400,000 confidential electronic documents, all of which are related to off-shore accounts, were leaked to Süddeutsche Zeitung, which was published in Germany in November 2017. The newspaper shared the documents with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Later, the documents were circulated all over the world. More than 120,000 people and companies are mentioned in the documents such as Queen Elizabeth II, President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos and the Minister of Commerce of the United States Wilbur Ross, as well as Turkey's then Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, his sons, relatives, Berat Albayrak and Serhat Albayrak. Pelin Ünker wrote a series of articles in Cumhuriyet Newspaper based on these documents. Later, the names mentioned in the article series filed lawsuits against Ünker and the newspaper. Ünker, who was accused of "slander and insult" in the lawsuit filed by Binali Yıldırım and his sons, was sentenced to 1 year, 1 month and 15 days in prison by the İstanbul 2nd Penal Court of First Instance on 8 January 2019 and a fine of 8,860 TL. The court of appeal canceled the prison sentence on May 7, 2019, and upheld the fine. The lawsuit filed upon the complaint of Berat Albayrak and Serhat Albayrak was concluded on 28 March 2019. İstanbul 2nd Penal Court of First Instance ruled that there was a time-out regarding the case. Access to the news of Diken, who covered the decision, was blocked. The posts of Yaman Akdeniz, who later announced the access ban, were also censored. Sehat Albayrak sued Akdeniz. |
(HA/VK)