Lawsuit Against Bülent Şık Due to His Article Series on Cancer Research Results

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A lawsuit has been filed against Food Engineer and bianet columnist Asst. Prof. Dr. Bülent Şık on charges of "disclosure of secrets about duty" (Turkish Penal Code Article No. 258); "provision of prohibited information" (Turkish Penal Code Article No. 334); and "disclosure of prohibited information" (Turkish Penal Code Article No. 336).

In the indictment issued by Prosecutor Gökhan Boydak from the İstanbul Terror and Organized Crimes Investigation Bureau, the article series of Bülent Şık published on Cumhuriyet newspaper have been cited as the reason for the charges brought against Şık.

Investigation launched upon Ministry's complaint

The article series of Bülent Şık subjected to investigation were on "the Project on Assessment of Environmental Factors in the Provinces of Kocaeli, Antalya, Tekirdağ, Edirne, Kırklareli and Their Impacts on Health," the findings of which have not been published by the state officials.

The article series entitled "The state has concealed the carcinogen products, we are making them public! Here is the poison list" were published on Cumhuriyet daily newspaper for four days from April 15 to April 18, 2018.

After the article series were published on Cumhuriyet, the Ministry of Health filed a criminal complaint against Şık. The indictment, which demands that Şık be sentenced to 5 to 12 years in prison, was first prepared by the Press Crimes Investigation Bureau of the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

However, this indictment was returned to the Prosecutor's Office and it was re-submitted to court by the terror crimes bureau without any changes.

The objective was to identify carcinogen chemicals

The project, whose results were addressed in the article series of Bülent Şık, was carried out by the Ministry of Health, Public Health Agency of Turkey between the years of 2011-2016 with the contribution of a number of scientists from various universities and ministry personnel.

The objective of the project was to identify the carcinogen chemicals in the provinces of Kocaeli, Edirne, Kırklareli and Tekirdağ, where the cases of cancer occur the most in Turkey.

In the project, Asst. Prof. Dr. Bülent Şık, who was discharged from his post at Akdeniz University as per the Statutory Decree dated November 22, 2016, was responsible for organizing the research projects on food and water, carrying out the analyses and writing the final reports.

They were also published on bianet

In his article published on bianet, Bülent Şık wrote that the research was completed to a large extent in 2015 and there remained only the question as to whether there is an exposure in terms of worker health stemming from the workplace conditions.

In another article published on bianet, Şık also questioned the reasons why the findings of the cancer research in Kocaeli and Edirne had not not been made public yet.

(TP/SD)