ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s justice minister on Tuesday slammed the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) for ruling in favor of a teacher affiliated with the Fethullah Gulen Movement, saying the court has exceeded its authority.
Yuksel Yalcinkaya, a Turkish teacher arrested in 2016 on suspicion of being a member of the Fethullah Gulen Movement, accused by Ankara of orchestrating the 2016 failed coup attempt against Erdogan, and labeled as an armed terrorist organization. In 2017 Yalcinkaya was found guilty and sentenced to six years and three months imprisonment. Two years later, the teacher’s appeal to the Turkish constitutional court was rejected. Yalcinkaya’s alleged use of an encrypted mobile application ByLock, was treated as definitive inculpatory evidence, leading to his conviction.
On Tuesday the ECHR ruled in favor of Yuksel Yalcinkaya against Turkey stating that “there had been violations of the right to a fair trial, to no punishment without law and to freedom of association,” in Turkey.
“It is unacceptable for the ECHR to exceed its authority and give a verdict of violation by examining the evidence on a case for which our judicial authorities at all levels… deem the evidence sufficient,” Yilmaz Tunc, Turkish minister of justice said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Tunc stressed that the ECHR is not a cassation court and does not have the authority to evaluate evidence that has been evaluated within the jurisdiction of a state’s national law and national courts.
“Although the ECHR has repeatedly stated in its jurisprudence that it does not have the authority to evaluate evidence, it has resorted to evaluating evidence when it comes to FETO trial,” Tunc said, using a derogatory acronym for Gulen’s Hizmet Movement.
The ECHR ruling states that Turkey has violated Yalcikaya’s rights according to three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, namely the right to no punishment without law, to a free trial, and to freedom of association.
The court also concluded that Turkey “had to take general measures appropriate to address those systemic problems, notably with regard to the Turkish judiciary’s approach to Bylock evidence,” reiterating that its decision is binding.
According to the ruling of the ECHR, Yalcinkaya's conviction was "based decisively" on his alleged use of ByLock, a messaging system that Turkey claims was extensively used by Gulen supporters for internal communication.
“Anyone who had used Bylock could, in principle, be convicted on that basis alone of membership of an armed terrorist organisation,” the court said in the ruling.
Yalcikaya’s was not the first case on which the ECHR ruled against Turkey. In 2021 the court ruled that Turkey had violated the rights of more than 400 judges and prosecutors by holding them in pre-trial detention in the wake of the 2016 coup attempt and ordered Ankara to pay compensation.
Ankara has ignored several ECHR decisions against it, namely in the cases of the jailing of Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas and philanthropist Osman Kavala. In December 2020, the human rights court ordered the “immediate release” of Demirtas who has been imprisoned since 2016 on charges of ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), after Finding that “several violations” of the European Convention on Human Rights had been committed. Erdogan slammed the court ruling at the time, stating that “These steps are political, double standards and hypocritical.”
In February 2022, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to launch infringement proceedings against Turkey given Ankara’s failure to comply with a 2019 court order to release Kavala pending trial. As a result of this decision Turkey risks losing its voting rights and its membership in the organization.
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