2015 prison census - Turkey: Mehmet Baransu

Baransu, a former columnist and correspondent for the daily Taraf and founder of the news website Gerçek Gündem (Real Agenda), was being held at Silivri prison in Istanbul on charges of obtaining secret documents, according to his lawyer and news reports. If convicted, he could face up to eight years in prison.

Police searched Baransu's house and detained him on March 1, 2015. He was arrested by a court on March 2 and sent to the Metris Prison in Istanbul before being transferred to Silivri on May 12, according to reports. According to local reports, Baransu was held in substandard conditions. His lawyer Sercan Sakalli told CPJ that his client was not mistreated but "being in Silivri prison is a violation of his rights on its own" given that Silivri is a high-security prison and Baransu has not been tried.

Sakalli said a court order has ruled that the investigation is secret. Baransu's defense team did not have access to the materials of the investigation into their client by year's end, the lawyer said.

He added that authorities have focused on a document titled "The Sovereign Action Plan" that was part of a packet of documents Baransu shared with prosecutors in 2010. That document, the lawyer said, was never made public, and authorities did not previously question the reporter's possession of a classified document.

In 2010 Baransu broke the news of an alleged military coup plan that came to be known as Sledgehammer. Written by Baransu and other then-editors of Taraf as a series, the Sledghammer story was based on what were said to be military documents leaked to Baransu by an anonymous source. "The Sovereign Action Plan" was among these documents, but it was not reported on because it was not related to the alleged coup plan, according to local reports. In court testimony, Baransu said he delivered the documents he had received from the anonymous source to prosecutors in 2010, after Taraf published its series. The documents were then used by Turkish prosecutors to start an investigation in which hundreds of suspects, including journalists, were tried on anti-state charges.

On June 30, 2015, the Anadolu Second Court of the First Instance sentenced Baransu to 10 months in prison on additional charges of insulting president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a series of tweets and retweets about allegations of government corruption in December 2013, Sakalli told CPJ. Sakalli said some of the tweets had been issued from accounts impersonating the journalist.

Sakalli told CPJ that several other cases are pending in Turkish courts against Baransu that stem from his critical reporting in 2013 on issues such as the alleged genetic modification of food products in Turkey and government wrongdoing. In these cases, Baransu is accused of being a member of the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization/ Parallel State Structure-a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, the lawyer said.