Journalists Imprisoned in 2017 - Gültekin Avcı

Bugün | Imprisoned in Turkey | August 25, 2016

Police arrested Gültekin Avcı on August 25, 2016, after the journalist had spent only weeks out of prison.

On September 20, 2015, the Second Penal Court of Peace in Istanbul ordered Avcı to be held in pretrial detention on charges including "attempting to overthrow the government" and being a member of a terrorist organization, according to news reports. Avcı was detained two days before that in the western city of Izmir, reports said.

Prosecutors charged Avcı in connection with a series of columns he wrote in 2013 and 2014 for the independent daily Bugün (Today) in which he alleged that the Turkish National Intelligence Organization, the country's spy agency, had links to a group called Tawhid-Salam, the English-language daily Today's Zaman reported. News reports said that Turkish authorities declared the Iranian-backed group a terrorist organization in 2014.

News reports cited Avcı's lawyer as saying the journalist was not allowed to testify in court. The lawyer also said Avcı had been mistreated in custody and denied food, the reports said.

Four police officers were detained in connection with the same case, but three were later released, news reports said. Avcı and the officers were accused of "attempting to overthrow the government," with the journalist allegedly using his column to try to turn public opinion against the ruling party, local reports said.

Avcı is a former prosecutor and the legal representative of Hidayet Karaca, chairman of the Samanyolu Broadcast Group, who was imprisoned on anti-state charges in December 2014, according to news reports.

Avcı was released from Silivri Prison in Istanbul on June 9, 2016, having spent seven months behind bars awaiting trial, CPJ reported at the time. His trial had been scheduled to resume on August 2, 2016, but on August 25, 2016, police in the coastal city of Izmir detained him again as part of a purge of suspected followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish government accuses of maintaining a terrorist organization and "parallel state structure" (FETÖ/PDY, as the government calls it) within Turkey that it alleges masterminded a failed July 2016 military coup.

A court in Izmir ordered the journalist jailed late on the night of August 25, 2016, according to reports published the following day. According to the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Şafak, the court arrested Avcı for "being member of an armed terrorist organization."

In late 2017, CPJ was unable to determine any updates to Avcı's case or find contact details for the lawyer assigned to represent him. When CPJ contacted the journalist's wife by phone, she said she that did not have further details in her husband's case.