Ankara, June 5 (IANS/AKI) A Turkish court has ordered journalist Ozgur Mumcu to stand trial for defaming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and faces up to four years and eight months in prison if convicted, the Cihan news agency said on Friday.
The court indicted Mumcu, a journalist for Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, for an opinion piece on Erdogan published on March 18 entitled "Tyrant and a coward", according to Cihan.
The right to disseminate and interpret information applies "only when there is public interest and concern involved", Cihan cited Mumcu's indictment as saying.
Mumcu's article criticised Erdogan's complaint against Hatice Comert, mother of Abdullah Comert, one of the victims of the police crackdown on initially peaceful protests in 2013 over a plan to redevelop Istanbul's Gezi Park. Erdogan alleges that Hatice Comert threatened him.
In his article, Mumcu also denounced Erdogan's "cold-heartedness" over the case of a teacher who died of a heart attack during a police crackdown in the Black Sea town of Hopa in 2011 and that of a 15-year-old who died in a coma after being hit in the head by a gas canister during the Gezi Park protests.
Erdogan has also filed a lawsuit against Cumhuriyet's director Can Dundar after the paper published images from a video showing Turkish intelligence trucks carrying weapons to Syrian rebels, not just humanitarian aid to the war-torn country as the government had previously claimed.
Erdogan announced legal action against Dundar in a live interview broadcast on the state-run TRT Haber news station on May 31, vowing that the editor-in-chief would "pay a heavy price" for his actions.
Press freedom is a rising concern in Turkey, where over 100 people have recently been charged and some detained after being accused of insulting Erdogan. Anti-government journalists and public figures in particular have been targeted by the police and prosecutors.
Dozens of people, including journalists, high school students, activists and even a former Miss Turkey, have been prosecuted for "insulting" Erdogan on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Turkey currently ranks 149 out of 180 on the 2015 World Press Freedom Index prepared by Reporters Without Borders. The country is also categorised as "not free" by Freedom House's annual Freedom of the Press report.
--IANS/AKI
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