Turkish prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the İstanbul Bar Association for “terrorist propaganda” over its calls for a probe into journalist deaths in Syria, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the country’s main lawyers association.
“The İstanbul public prosecutor’s office has begun legal action to remove İstanbul Bar Association president İbrahim Kaboğlu and his executive board,” Turkish Bar Association head Erinç Sağkan wrote on X late Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed several weeks after the İstanbul Bar Association demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Nazım Daştan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, died on December 19 when their car was hit by what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was a “Turkish drone strike” during clashes between an Ankara-backed militia and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed group of mainly Kurdish fighters.
Turkey sees the SDF as a terror group tied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long war on Turkish soil.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency, and the strike denounced by the Turkish Journalists’ Union.
The Turkish military insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
At the time, the İstanbul Bar Association issued a statement saying “targeting members of the press in conflict zones is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention.” It demanded “a proper investigation be conducted into the murder of two of our citizens.”
Prosecutors immediately opened an inquiry into allegations of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “publicly spreading false information” on grounds the two journalists had ties to the PKK.
The İstanbul Bar Association denounced the lawsuit as having “no legal basis” and said its executive council was “fulfilling its duties and responsibilities in line with the Constitution, democracy and the law.”
Turkish Bar Association head Sağkan said: “Although the methods may change, the only thing that has remained constant for the past half century is the effort by the government’s supporters to pressurize and stifle those they see as opponents.”