Kanat and Bozan v. Turkey (13799/04)
| Date | 20081021 |
|---|---|
| Article | 10 |
| Decision | violation |
Violation of Article 10
Kanat and Bozan v. Turkey (no. 13799/04)
The applicants, Kadriye Kanat and Gülşen Bozan, are Turkish nationals who were born in 1978 and 1974 respectively and live in Istanbul.
At the relevant time the applicants were, respectively, the editor and owner of the monthly magazine Özgür Kadının Sesi (Voice of the Free Woman). In April 2001, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, the magazine published a statement by Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of an illegal armed organisation, the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan). In his statement Öcalan gave an account of women’s place in society since neolithic times and then went on to comment on their situation in modern societies and the importance of education with a view to improving their status. The applicants were prosecuted for publishing a statement by one of the leaders of an illegal organisation, fined and temporarily banned from publishing their magazine. Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), the applicants complained about those convictions.
The Court considered that the grounds given by the Turkish courts could not in themselves be considered sufficient to justify the interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression. It observed that the fact that a member of a proscribed organisation had given an interview or made statements did not in itself justify an interference with a newspaper’s right to freedom of expression. The terms used in the statement did not incite recourse to violence, armed resistance or insurrection, and did not constitute hate speech, which in the Court’s opinion was the essential point to be taken into consideration. It found that the applicants’ convictions had been disproportionate to the aims pursued and therefore not “necessary in a democratic society”. It held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 10 and awarded the applicants EUR 2,500 jointly for non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French.)