Communicated on 26 August 2016
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 5782/10
Eylem Dilan POLAT and Mehmet TALI
against Turkey
lodged on 27 January 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicants, Ms Eylem Dilan Polat and Mr Mehmet Tali, are Turkish nationals who were born in 1973 and 1976 respectively and live in Switzerland. They are represented before the Court by Mrs G. Altay and Mr H. Karakuş, lawyers practising in Istanbul.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
At the relevant time, the applicants were members of a research cooperative (Doğu Bilimsel Araştırmalar Kooperatifi, “the Cooperative”).
On 31 May 2005 the Cooperative organised an exhibition in Diyarbakır as part of the fifth Diyarbakır Culture and Art Festival, where posters of deceased members of the PKK – an illegal armed organisation – and posters of deceased members of the security forces who had been killed in security operations were publicly displayed.
On an unspecified date a criminal investigation was launched against the applicants and five other people with the charge of disseminating propaganda in favour of the PKK. On 31 May 2005 the applicants gave a statement to the investigating judge. Both maintained that the exhibition in question had been organised for purely sociological reasons, and that they had conducted interviews with the families of the deceased, which had also been included in the exhibition. They asserted that there had been no intention to disseminate propaganda in favour of the PKK. The investigating judge dismissed the public prosecutor’s application to remand the accused.
On 6 October 2005 the public prosecutor filed an indictment with the Diyarbakır Assize Court, charging the applicants and five other suspects with disseminating propaganda in favour of the PKK under section 7 (2) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Law no. 3713).
Throughout the proceedings before the Diyarbakır Assize Court the applicants repeated their previous statements and maintained that photographs of deceased members of the security forces had also been displayed alongside those of members of the PKK in the exhibition.
On 18 May 2006 the Diyarbakır Assize Court convicted both applicants of disseminating propaganda in favour of an illegal organisation under section 7 (2) of Law no. 3713. The applicants were sentenced to two years and a year and eight months’ imprisonment, respectively. In its judgment, the Assize Court observed that the invitations to the exhibition had referred to the armed conflict between the security forces and the PKK as a “war”, and the PKK members as “guerrillas”, thus glorifying the deceased terrorists and inciting young people to become members of the PKK. The assize court considered that a few photographs of the deceased soldiers had also been displayed in order to conceal the accused’s intention to incite young people to join the PKK.
On 9 June 2009 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment in respect of the second applicant, holding that the case should be reviewed in the light of Article 231 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Law no. 5271), which regulates the suspension of a judgment’s pronouncement. However, the trial court’s judgment of 18 May 2006 became final in respect of the first applicant. On 3 August 2009 the decision of the Court of Cassation was deposited with the registry of the first-instance court.
On 22 October 2009, in accordance with Article 231 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Diyarbakır Assize Court decided to suspend pronouncement of its judgment in respect of the second applicant on the condition that he did not commit another wilful offence for a period of five years.
The first applicant served the sentence arising from the judgment of 18 May 2006.
COMPLAINT
The applicants complain under Article 10 of the Convention that the institution of criminal proceedings against them and their criminal convictions on account of a number of photographs displayed in an exhibition constituted an unjustified interference with their right to freedom of expression.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to freedom of expression, within the meaning of Article 10 of the Convention, on account of their conviction under section 7 (2) of Law no. 3713?
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