Jin News Director Safiye Alağaş will appear before the court after one year in pre-trial detention

Archive 08 June 2023

DENİZ TEKİN*

Jin News News Director Safiye Alağaş, who was arrested on 16 June 2022 along with 15 colleagues as part of a separate investigation, will appear before a court in Diyarbakır on Thursday, June 15th, after a year in detention. In the indictment prepared by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office Terrorism Crimes Investigation Bureau, award-winning journalist Alağaş has been charged with “membership in a terrorist organization.” The indictment cited the news articles written by the journalist, the language used in news articles published in Jin News, news visuals, news headlines and the agency's editorial policy as evidence for the charge. The prosecutor claimed that Alağaş had also personally produced news articles following the instructions of the organization and accused her of “directing feelings of violence and resentment against the state” with these news articles. The Diyarbakır 5th High Criminal Court accepted the indictment in which the prosecution demands 7.5 to 15 years in prison for Alağaş and scheduled the first hearing of the case for June 15th at 10.40 am.

Safiye Alağaş at the ceremony of the Maria Grazia Cutuli Journalism Award

‘PKK Journalism’: Editorial policy and news articles cited as evidence

Dividing the 383-page indictment into six sections, the prosecutor included general information about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and the alleged activities of the PKK/KCK in the field of media in the first part of the indictment. The indictment lists the names of radios, newspapers, magazines, televisions, publishing houses and news agencies allegedly affiliated with the PKK and KCK, but does not include the name of Jin News. The prosecutor claimed that Fırat News Agency (ANF), Medya Haber TV and NuçeCiwan are engaged in “PKK journalism” and that they are “PKK central media.” The prosecutor claimed that the news published on these news websites and the news published on Jin News were “found to be parallel.” In addition, the prosecutor claimed that Jin News “carried out organizational activities within the organization's press committee structure” by producing and sending content for foreign media outlets and sharing content under “news headlines and video titles” on the agency's own website. The prosecutor stated that the investigation was initiated after it was determined that Alagaş, the owner of a news agency -which complies with the legislation and is a taxpayer-, “carried out organizational activities by taking part in the press committee of the terrorist organization within the structure of the PKK/KCK Armed Terrorist Organization, even though she was under the appearance of carrying out legal activities, and in this way, she acted knowingly and willingly in line with the purposes of the organization.” The prosecutor commented that Jin News has “an editorial policy parallel to the ideological signs of the PKK/KCK Terrorist Organization is dominant.”

News published in Jin News defined as ‘organizational news’

The section of the indictment titled “Investigation of the Agency named Jinnews” devotes 271 pages to the activities of Jin News and allegations against the agency. The prosecutor claimed that the agency was established in Diyarbakır in 2017 to replace the JINHA News Agency, which was shut down by a State of Emergency Decree dated 29 October 29 and included in this section the official trade registration of Jin News and the information that the representation and share transfer of the company was registered in 2017 in accordance with the Turkish Commercial Code. In the indictment, where screenshots of the page with the imprint and address information on the official website of the agency were presented as evidence of the crime, it was emphasized that Safiye Alağaş's name was written as the director of the agency on the imprint. Stating that it was determined that the website of Jin News was blocked access by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) on 14 June 2022 with the decision of Adana 3rd Criminal Judgeship of Peace, the prosecutor presented 85 news articles published on the agency's website under the categories of “current”, “politics”, “law”, “life”, “labor/economy”, “culture-arts”, “ecology”, “world”, “health-sports” as “organizational news” and claimed that the news in question were “organizational activities.” The news items presented to the indictment as evidence for the charge include reports on the prison conditions of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, statements made by politicians and citizens about Turkey's military operations in northern Syria and northern Iraq and the difficulties faced by women journalists due to their professional activities.

Prosecutor: ‘The title of the news and sharing notes reveal its organizational nature’

The screenshots of 32 news articles shared on Jin News's Twitter account were presented as evidence of crime under the subheading “Pro-Terrorist Organization News Headlines and Images.” The prosecutor stated that this section aims to reveal “the organizational content of the visuals, headlines and sharing notes rather than the content of the news, as it is explained in detail that news with organizational content is made on Jinnews, and that the news is prepared both visually and in content in line with the propaganda and purpose of the PKK terrorist organization, and that the news content given until this section will be sufficient for further evaluation.” The prosecutor claimed that the news content in the digital data downloaded from the servers of Stêrk TV and Medya Haber TV broadcasting abroad during the search of Ari Production Company as part of the June 16th criminal investigation was similar to the news content published in Jin News. Digital materials, news archives, news visuals and notes seized during the search of Jin News office were also included in the indictment as criminal evidence. The notebook, which contained notes on the agenda of the agency, was shown as organizational evidence because of the phrases “isolation should be on the agenda”, “prisoners”, “sick prisoners” and “self-governance.” The prosecutor argued that the word “isolation”, which appears 281 times in the indictment, “has become a phenomenon that corresponds to the physical freedom of Abdullah Öcalan and has become a term used by the PKK/KCK armed terrorist organization.” The issues of Jineoloji Magazine and Xwebûn Newspaper and news visuals seized during the searches at the agency were also presented as evidence of the crime.

News that Alağaş received a journalism award is also evidence of crime

The indictment includes 90 pages of evidence against Safiye Alağaş. The prosecutor added the company's information in the Trade Registry Gazette to the indictment and presented Alağaş's ownership of the Jin News agency as criminal evidence, and presented the content of 30 news articles published in Jin News with Alağaş's signature and the visuals of these news articles as criminal elements under the title “Organizational News Published in Jinnews Prepared by the Suspect Personally.” Alağaş's statement to the press as a member of the Mesopotamia Women Journalists Platform (MKGP) about the detained journalists and her speeches at the commemoration for journalist Deniz Fırat, who was killed by an ISIS attack in Iraq while covering a story, were titled as “Organizational Statements and Interviews.”. Music, notes and photographs found on Alağaş's confiscated computer were also presented to the indictment as evidence against the journalist. In the report prepared after an “open source intelligence gathering” by the police, a news article about the case against her which Alağaş shared on her social media account with the comment “It is not us who are on trial, but journalism”, the links and screenshots of her biography on the website Pressinarrest, which reports on journalism trials, and the news article published in Evrensel newspaper with the title “This year, Jin News News Agency Managing Editor Safiye Alağaş was awarded the prize given in the name of journalist Maria Grazia Cutuli, who lost her life in an al-Qaeda attack in Afghanistan” were presented as “criminal elements with organizational content” in the indictment. Alağaş's membership to the Free Journalists Association, which was shut down by a state of emergency decree, and the records of previous investigations and lawsuits against her were also included in the indictment as criminal elements. The decision of non-prosecution in the investigation against Alağaş in 2016 was also lifted on the grounds of the statements of the secret witness who testified in this investigation.

Alağaş denied the charges in her statement

Alağaş's statement at the prosecutor's office, the only evidence in her favor, was included in the indictment as a summary. Alağaş's statement is given only half a page before the “Evaluation of the Evidence” section. Alağaş said that she is also the managing editor of Jin News and that she founded a women's news agency as a journalist who takes part in the women's struggle. Stating that she did not receive any instructions to report the news, Alağaş said that she produced the cited news articles of her own volition and that the term “isolation” used in the news reports was not an expression used by the organization but in fact a universal term. Alağaş stated that she has no relation with news channels such as Medya Haber TV and NuçeCiwan, which operate abroad, and denied all charges.

According to the prosecutor, Alağaş's news reports ‘incite feelings of violence and resentment against the state’

In the evaluation section of the indictment, the prosecutor alleged that Jin News tried to create “the perception of victimhood in line with the organization's purpose by consciously using organizational victim jargon or using pictures of civilians in news articles that denigrate the state.” The prosecutor claimed that some of the news headlines were made in line with the aims of the organization, and argued that some of these news headlines were deliberately made to praise the organization, while others were deliberately made to denigrate the Republic of Turkey. The prosecutor emphasized that Alağaş was the owner and news director of the agency and argued that she should be considered responsible for all news published in the agency and all of its operations. In this context, the prosecutor referred again to the news headlines, claiming that Alağaş “directed the creation of emotions such as violence, resentment against the state and sympathy for the organization” in the members of the public who read the news headlines prepared by Alağaş. The prosecutor also referred to two interviews Alağaş gave to Fırat News Agency regarding the detentions and repression of journalists, claiming that Alağaş “criticized and opposed the investigations against the organization and their progress.” The indictment prosecutor accused Alağaş of taking part in the organization's media structure, creating a workplace and a field of activity to carry out activities in line with the organization's purpose, ensuring the production of propaganda news in line with the organization's goals, preparing and publishing news in line with the organization's agenda. The prosecutor claimed that it was understood within the scope of the entire investigation file that Alağaş had organic ties with the terrorist organization, is included in the hierarchy of the organization and committed the crime of “being a member of an armed terrorist organization” and demanded that the journalist be sentenced. *The rights to this work are partially reserved by Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) License. This work may be used and distributed with attribution to MLSA and for non-commercial purposes.

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