Police Raid on Lawyers of Journalist Şık Considered Legal

The Istanbul 12^th High Criminal Court dismissed the appeal against the seizure of the manuscript for a book entitled "The Imam's Army" written by detained journalist Ahmet Şık.

Şık was taken into custody on 3 March and arrested three days later in the context of the Ergenekon investigation, a probe into a clandestine ultra-nationalist organization charged with staging various crimes with the ultimate purpose to topple the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

Last week, the lawyers and also family members and colleagues of Şık became subject to a police raid and were asked to hand over drafts of the yet unpublished book.

The court notified the lawyers about the corresponding decision on Tuesday (29 March). It was stated that the seizure of the manuscript, attachments and other documents related to the draft version of the book was not contrary to the law.

Şık's lawyers saw a breach of Articles 124 (Interactions related to individuals who refuse to surrender the requested items) and 126 (Letters and documents immune from seizure) of the Criminal Procedure Law (CMK) and of Article 36 of the Advocacy Law and had filed an appeal against the seizure accordingly. The joint attorneys said that the court dismissed the appeal without actually having considered their objections.

Upon the order of the Istanbul 12^th High Criminal Court given on 24 March, the police seized files with information related to the draft of the book from the office of Şık's lawyer Fikret İlkiz. The same happened to joint attorneys Bülent Utku and Akın Atalay.

Turkish Union of Bar Associations critical

Lawyer Ahsen Coşar, Head of the Turkish Union of Bar Associations, criticized the seizure of draft versions of Şık's unpublished book in a statement on Tuesday.

"The seizure of a book that has not been published yet or the seizure of draft versions of a book is a very severe attack on press freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and publishing and freedom of science and arts", Coşar argued.

Coşar pointed to the special authority courts as the major source of previous unlawful applications experienced in the scope of similar investigations and prosecutions. "The court is functioning like a political means of intimidation with decisions of confidentiality that restrict the right to defence with special methods of investigation and prosecution in the absence of normal courts in normal times of a democratic order. The state's ideological apparatus and yet more the courts that work like insurrection courts should be abolished as soon as possible together with the special procedural provisions envisaged for these courts", the lawyer said. (EÖ/VK)