Mustafa Gök, Ekmek ve Adalet
Medium:Print
Charge:Anti-state
Imprisoned:February 19, 2004

A local court sentenced Gök, Ankara correspondent for the leftist magazine Ekmek ve Adalet (Bread and Justice), to six years and three months in prison on charges of being a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Salvation Party/Front (DHKP/C), according to his defense lawyer, Evrim Deniz Karatana. Gök's lawyers appealed the sentence.

He was being kept at the Ankara F Type High Security Closed Prison No. 1, according to a list of imprisoned journalists provided by the Turkish Justice Ministry in November 2013 at CPJ's request.

Karatana told CPJ that the evidence against the journalist consisted of his news coverage and attendance at political demonstrations. She said Gök had been targeted for his reporting on politics and human rights, along with his beliefs as a socialist. Karatana said her client suffers from Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a brain disorder, which has led to a loss of sight and balance. She said he was jailed despite having a medical document that says he has a severe disability and is ineligible for incarceration.

Gök was also serving a life term on charges of membership in a terrorist organization, forgery, bombing, and murder, all dating to the early 1990s, according to the Justice Ministry's updated list. The life sentence was withdrawn in 2002 when Gök was released on parole for health reasons, Karatana told CPJ. When Gök was rearrested in 2004 on the DHKP/C membership charges, the life term was reinstated, she said. She said their appeal against the reinstated life term was rejected.

According to Turkish attorney Hürrem Sönmez, who represents CPJ before the Turkish Justice Ministry, Gök was still in the same prison in late 2015 and his health had deteriorated.

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