Nurcan Baysal investigated for social media posts on COVID-19 and prison conditions
On the morning of 20 April 2020, Nurcan Baysal received a call from Diyarbakır Police Headquarters, requesting her to go the station in the afternoon to give a statement relating to a new investigation into her online postings. This call came less than three weeks after she had given a statement concerning tweets she had posted in which she questioned the authorities’ response to the Covid 19 pandemic.
On the afternoon of the same day, Nurcan went to the police station with her lawyer to find out that a new investigation had been opened relating to two tweets she had posted in February 2018 and October 2019.
On 30 March 2020, Nurcan Baysal was interrogated by the police in Diyarbakır as part of a criminal investigation opened against her in connection with her recent social media posts on the measures taken in the province in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. If indicted, she may be charged with “provoking the public to hatred and hostility”.
Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish human rights defender and journalist based in the South-Eastern province of Diyarbakır. In 2015 and 2016, she documented human rights violations committed during the frequent military operations carried out in the region. As a journalist, she covers Kurdish issues and topics related to human rights, development and poverty. She has co-founded several civil society organisations and has contributed to many studies on forced migration, poverty, development and gender. In recent years, she has been involved in the establishment of a refuge for Yazidi women fleeing the Islamic State. She is also the Global Laureate of the 2018 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
On the morning of 20 April 2020, Nurcan Baysal received a call from Diyarbakır Police Headquarters, requesting her to go the station in the afternoon to give a statement relating to a new investigation into her online postings. This call came less than three weeks after she had given a statement concerning tweets she had posted in which she questioned the authorities’ response to the Covid 19 pandemic.
On the afternoon of the same day, Nurcan went to the police station with her lawyer to find out that a new investigation had been opened relating to two tweets she had posted in February 2018 and October 2019. One of the tweets, which is pinned to her Twitter profile, reads: “We started working to fix our torn down house in Sur. C’mon, shake yourselves up. Leave despair and hopelessness behind. Send a post card to prisoners, show solidarity with the families that they had to leave behind. Sur, Cizre, Şırnak... stand with the people whose houses were torn down! Look up to the sky, the stars are still there…"
The other tweet from October 2019 responded to a post from Temel Karamollaoğlu, the leader of an opposition party, regarding the Turkish military offensive in Syria in October 2019. She wrote “You will contribute to the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands of people. May God not forgive you!”
The accusations against her are the same as the previous investigation: “inciting hatred and enmity among public”, based solely on those two tweets.
Nurcan Baysal reacted to the accusation by saying that her pinned tweet aims to incite hope and solidarity, not hatred and enmity and to defend the right to life. She reminded the officers of her right to freedom of expression protected by the Constitution of Turkey as well as international human rights standards.
On 30 March 2020, Nurcan Baysal was interrogated by the police in Diyarbakır as part of a criminal investigation opened against her in connection with her recent social media posts on the measures taken in the province in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. If indicted, she may be charged with “provoking the public to hatred and hostility”.
Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish human rights defender and journalist based in the South-Eastern province of Diyarbakır. In 2015 and 2016, she documented human rights violations committed during the frequent military operations carried out in the region. As a journalist, she covers Kurdish issues and topics related to human rights, development and poverty. She has co-founded several civil society organisations and has contributed to many studies on forced migration, poverty, development and gender. In recent years, she has been involved in the establishment of a refuge for Yazidi women fleeing the Islamic State. She is also the Global Laureate of the 2018 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
On 30 March 2020, Nurcan Baysal was summoned to the police headquarters in Diyarbakır to give her statement for a new criminal investigation initiated against her. She requested the interrogation to be postponed until the lockdown measures against the COVID-19 pandemic are over, but was denied on the grounds of urgency. The police said that there was an arrest warrant for her which had not been implemented for public health reasons.
The woman human rights defender went to the police station with her lawyer. She was interrogated about her recent social media posts, mostly commenting on the precautions taken by the government against COVİD-19 and their implementation in Diyarbakir and other Kurdish cities. The police also asked about her two recent articles, one of them titled “Routine life goes on in Diyarbakır despite coronavirus”. She was further questioned about her motives for posting on Twitter which amounted to a “threat to incitement to fear and panic among the public”, according to the record of her statement issued by the police. She was informed that she was officially under arrest but could go home due to the public health measures. She was asked to return to the police headquarters the next day in order to be taken to the Prosecutor’s office to give her statement.
The next morning, on 31 March, Nurcan Baysal and her lawyers went to the Diyarbakir police headquarters as requested and were escorted to the Prosecutor’s office. There, the defender was questioned about her social media posts, in particular those mentioning the poor prison conditions and calling for the release of prisoners due to health risks. After taking her statement, the prosecutor referred Nurcan Baysal to the Justice of Peace in Criminal Matters on suspicion of “provoking the public to hatred and hostility”, and requested her judicial control in the form of a travel ban.
Nurcan defended herself before the Justice of Peace, saying that it was her duty as a journalist and a human rights defender to inform the public and raise awareness. She further asserted that a travel ban would impede her work. While the defender was released without a travel ban, she remains under investigation. If indicted, she may be charged with “provoking the public to hatred and hostility”.
