A leading British human rights lawyer has filed an expanded appeal at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on behalf of Ali Ünal, a Turkish journalist who has spent nearly nine years in prison on terrorism charges over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish Minute reported.
Ben Keith, co-founder of International Human Rights Advisors and a prominent lawyer, announced the new legal move on Friday, ahead of World Press Freedom Day, observed on May 3. The legal submission accuses Turkish authorities of violating multiple provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Ünal’s detention, trial and ongoing incarceration.
Ünal, now 70, was a columnist for the now-defunct Zaman newspaper, which was shut down by the Turkish government by decree following a coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 due to its affiliation with the Gülen movement. Since his arrest, he has been held at a high security prison in the western province of İzmir where he suffers from a series of health issues caused by old age.
The Turkish government designates the Gülen movement, inspired by the views of late Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, as a terrorist organization and accuses it of orchestrating the coup. The movement strongly denies any involvement. Rights groups and international observers have criticized Turkey’s sweeping post-coup purges, which targeted thousands of journalists, academics, judges and civil servants under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
Ünal was arrested in August 2016 along with dozens of other journalists in a post-coup crackdown and in November 2018 was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison by the Uşak 2nd High Criminal Court on charges of “managing a terrorist organization.” He was acquitted of direct involvement in the coup attempt.
His sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals in 2021, while the country’s top court found his individual application inadmissible in 2022, effectively exhausting all domestic remedies.
The journalist filed an application at the ECtHR in January 2023, which is still pending.
“We are extremely concerned about the flagrant breaches of Mr Unal’s rights. There is a fundamental breakdown in the rule of law. Attacking journalists shows weakness in the face of criticism and fear in the face of truth,” Keith told Turkish Minute in a written interview.
He urged the ECtHR to deem Ünal’s application as category I, which means “urgent” in line with the court’s priority policy.
The new ECtHR application claims that Ünal’s detention and trial were filled with legal and procedural violations, including violation of the right to a fair trial (Article 6).
According to the new application, the journalist was not informed of the charges at the time of his arrest, interrogated without legal counsel, denied the right to examine witnesses and tried by a judiciary that lacked independence and impartiality.
The erosion in the rule of law in Turkey worsened after the failed coup, when more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were removed under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
In a development that confirmed the erosion of the Turkish judiciary, Turkey was ranked 117th out of 142 countries in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index published in October 2024.
The appeal also claims violation of Article 5 of the ECHR, which concerns arbitrary detention, saying that the journalist’s continued imprisonment has no lawful basis since it stems from a trial marred by serious procedural flaws.
There is also a violation of the Article 7 of the ECHR, which concerns no punishment without law, as the appeal claims that Ünal was convicted for articles written and speeches delivered before the Gülen movement was legally designated as a terrorist group in Turkey, which was in May 2016, effectively criminalizing past legal conduct.
The appeal also argues that Ünal’s imprisonment is part of a broader pattern of silencing political dissent and punishing critical journalism under the guise of national security and also includes a violation of Article 18 of the ECHR, which concerns “limitation on use of restrictions on rights.”
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2023 declared Ünal’s imprisonment arbitrary, citing violations under multiple categories related to fair trial rights and political persecution.
Ünal’s case is among dozens of similar prosecutions against journalists who worked for Gülen-affiliated media organizations, many of whom were detained or imprisoned in the aftermath of the coup attempt. The Zaman newspaper, once Turkey’s largest, was seized by the government in March 2016 and later shut down during a state of emergency.
Ünal, who is also a translator and prolific writer, is the author of more than 90 books.
Turkey’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index announced by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Friday has worsened, with the country ranked 159th this year among 180 countries. Its ranking was 158th in 2024.
