After years of process
Acquittal for Mesale Tolu in Turkey
The German journalist and translator Mesale Tolu (M), here accompanied by her husband Suat Corlu (l), has been acquitted after years of trial in Turkey. Photo: Emrah Gurel/AP/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A Turkish court has been hearing the case of the German journalist Mesale Tolu for more than four and a half years. Now the woman from Ulm has been acquitted.
German journalist Mesale Tolu has been acquitted in Turkey. “After 4 years, 8 months and 20 days: Acquitted on both counts!” Tolu tweeted on Monday after the verdict was announced.
Her husband Suat Corlu, who was charged in the same trial, was also acquitted. Tolu and Corlu did not attend the trial. You returned to Germany in 2018 and 2019.
Tweet Tolu
In the original indictment, the public prosecutor’s office accused Tolu and her husband of membership in the left-wing extremist Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) and terrorist propaganda. The MLCP is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey. However, she later asked Tolu to be acquitted of all charges.
Christian Mihr from the organization Reporters Without Borders criticized the process on Twitter as “further arbitrary proceedings” and “proof of the non-rule of law in Turkey”. “This procedure should never have taken place.”
trampled on human rights
The member of the Bundestag Max Lucks, chairman for the Greens in the committee for human rights, came to observe the process. “This process has shown how human rights are trampled underfoot and how great the Turkish government’s fear of a free and critical civil society is,” Lucks said, according to the press release.
Born and raised in Ulm, the Kurdish journalist and translator worked in Istanbul for the left-wing news agency Etha. The anti-terrorist police arrested her in Istanbul at the end of April 2017. The ensuing trial was adjourned several times.
Tolu was also in Turkish custody for more than seven months, sometimes together with her child. The ban on leaving the country against her was only lifted months after her release. On August 26, 2018, she returned to Germany with her then three-year-old son. The exit ban against Corlu was lifted later. “The verdict cannot make up for the repression and the time in detention,” Tolu wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Serious crisis between Berlin and Ankara
The arrest of German citizens led to a serious crisis between Berlin and Ankara in 2017. In addition to Tolu, the most prominent detainees were the “Welt” reporter Deniz Yücel and the human rights activist Peter Steudtner. You have now been allowed to leave the country. Steudtner has since been acquitted. Yücel was sentenced to more than two years in prison in July 2020 for terrorist propaganda for the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK.
Turkey ranks 153rd out of 180 for press freedom. At least since the attempted coup in 2016, the government has been cracking down on critical journalism targeting it. Many journalists have been put on trial for their work, and much of the country’s media is under government control.