Meşale Tolu

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meşale Tolu Çorlu (born 1984 in Ulm as Meşale Tolu [ mɛʃɑːˈlɛ tɔlu ]) is a German journalist and translator . In mid-May 2017 it became public that she had been arrested in Turkey at the end of April 2017 as part of her press activities , without German authoritieswere informed about this. Her fate and that of other journalists detained in Turkey is the subject of media coverage and diplomatic activity. Her trial began on October 11, 2017. On December 18, 2017, she was conditionally released from custody. In 2018 both Meşale Tolu and her husband Suat Çorlu were able to leave Turkey for Germany. In January 2022, Tolu and her husband were acquitted by a court in Istanbul.

Life

Meşale Tolu grew up in Ulm and graduated from the Anna Essinger High School there. Ten years before she was born, her father, the car mechanic Ali Rıza Tolu, had followed his parents, who had already been living in Ulm for a number of years. Tolu's family is of Kurdish origin. Her mother died in a traffic accident in 1990 while on holiday in Turkey. Tolu studied ethics and Spanish for teaching at high schools at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . In 2007 she received German citizenship and at the same time gave up her Turkish citizenship . At the end of 2014, Tolu and her husband Suat Çorlu became parents of a son.

Since 2014 she has reported for the private radio station Özgür Radyo in Istanbul . The station was shut down by government decree after the attempted coup in July 2016 . She also worked as a translator for the ETHA news agency . According to her lawyer Kader Tonc and her brother Hüseyin Tolu, before her arrest she only traveled to Turkey occasionally to work as a translator and reporter. Before her arrest, she had been in Turkey for about three months.

detention in Turkey

On May 10, 2017, the first reports appeared in the German media that a Turkish anti -terrorist unit had violently entered her apartment in the Kartal district of Istanbul on April 30, 2017 at around 4:30 a.m. local time and that she - according to press reports in front of her two-year-old son - had arrested. A colleague told reporters that Tolu was forced to leave her child with an unknown neighbor. Tolu's apartment was then devastated. She was accused of "terrorist propaganda" and "membership of a terrorist organization ". According to Gülhan Kaya, one of the lawyers looking at the case, one of the " evidence " against her was being among the approximately 2,000 people who attended the funeral of Sirin Öter and Yeliz Erbay. Both were MLKP members who were killed by police forces during an operation in Istanbul in 2015. According to her father, the public prosecutor 's office presented Tolu with photos as evidence , which they are supposed to show at a commemoration event for a German fighter from the Kurdish militia YPG who was killed in Syria in 2015 . Tolu claimed to have reported on the event as a journalist.

According to Martin Schäfer , spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office , Turkey violated international law and failed to inform the German government about the case. Turkey had not fulfilled its obligation to "inform the German side immediately about the translator's arrest and to enable consular support". This is a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations . The Federal Foreign Office is working “at full speed” to “get access to Mesale Tolu as quickly as possible”.

Tolu's husband, journalist Suat Çorlu, was arrested in Ankara on April 5, 2017 . He was held in custody in the Silivri prison for alleged membership in the MLCP and was able to leave Turkey in 2019 .

According to her brother Hüseyin Tolu, the family, who was detained in Bakırköy Women's Prison, were initially denied access to Tolu. According to press reports on May 15, 2017, Tolu's father was allowed to visit his daughter in prison, leaving his daughter with her son, who was to remain in prison with Tolu. According to media reports, she had previously been on a hunger strike for at least six days .

After two months in prison, German diplomats were allowed to visit Tolu for the first time; after a 90-minute conversation, they said they were doing "well, given the circumstances." According to Baki Selcuk, spokesman for the Free Meşale Tolu solidarity group, Tolu and her two-year-old son were in a cell with 24 other women. Disposable diapers were not available, and Tolu was not allowed to visit a play corner in the prison. On July 12, 2017, it was announced that prosecutors had filed charges ; the indictment was not available to Tolu's lawyer. The court had two weeks to set a court date, which could be several months in the future.

In early August 2017, media reported that Meşale Tolu's trial was scheduled to begin on October 11, 2017. According to media reports, the Turkish public prosecutor's office demanded 15 years in prison for "terrorist propaganda" and "membership in a terrorist organization". The Tagesspiegel wrote: "Transferred to Germany, that would also mean the arrest of 'Tagesspiegel' colleagues if they reported in January on the demonstrations of the left and scattered old East Germans in honor of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg ." August 2017, the competent court in Istanbul ruled during a routine detention review that Meşale Tolu had to remain in detention. According to Tolu's lawyer, the court justified the decision with a possible risk of absconding and evidence that had not yet been collected. On October 11, 2017, Tolu's trial began in Silivri , near Istanbul. She was accused, among other things, of taking part in four events, at one of which Tolu is said to have carried an MLCP banner. Propaganda material is said to have been found in her apartment. On the first day of the hearing, Tolu denied the allegations of terrorism against her. She criticized restrictions on press freedom in Turkey since the July 2016 coup attempt and said the alleged propaganda material was a legally purchasable magazine. She also criticized the long pre-trial detention and the prison conditions.

Meşale Tolu was released from prison on December 18, 2017. Five other detainees should also be released. However, the court imposed an exit ban on all six accused. Initially, the police ordered her deportation. According to Reporters Without Borders , at a hearing on April 26, 2018, which was also attended by the German Ambassador Martin Erdmann , Tolu was released from her weekly duty to report to the police; the continuation of the proceedings against her and her husband was only scheduled for October 16, 2018. Tolu's demand that she be allowed to return to Germany so that "my child can go to kindergarten in the country I come from" was not granted at the hearing.

Return to Germany

On August 20, 2018, it was announced that Tolu was allowed to travel to Germany. On August 26, Tolu landed at Stuttgart Airport . In a press conference after landing the same day, she said she was not happy because hundreds of journalists, members of the opposition, lawyers and students were still being held in Turkey. At that time, her husband was also still subject to an exit ban, but this was lifted by a Turkish court in October of the same year.

Since June 17, 2019, the 34-year-old has been doing a cross-media traineeship at the Schwäbische Zeitung , schwaebische.de and Regio TV Schwaben . The aim is to be able to demonstrate solid training in German-language regional and local journalism . What counts for the regional newspaper is that it already has experience, comes from the area and “brings interesting perspectives to everyday editorial work thanks to its family background”.

In September 2021, the Turkish prosecutor's office demanded acquittal on all charges in Tolu's trial. The public prosecutor's office also demanded acquittal for the remaining co-defendants on the charge of membership in a terrorist organization. However, prosecutors sought penalties against Tolu's husband, Suat Çorlu. On January 17, 2022, both Meşale Tolu and her husband were acquitted by the court.

reactions

  • The German Association of Journalists called on the Turkish judiciary to release the German journalist immediately, and spoke of a "brazen arbitrary act by the Turkish autocracy against the free press."
  • Cem Özdemir , federal leader of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party , called for Tolus' immediate release.
  • Left-wing politician Sevim Dağdelen called on Federal Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) to protest to the Turkish embassy “against the renewed arbitrary attack on German press representatives”.
  • At a rally on May 12, 2017 in Ulm's pedestrian zone, around 150 people demonstrated for Tolu's release, the police prevented attempts by some supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to disrupt him .
  • Baden-Württemberg Minister of Justice Guido Wolf asked the Turkish Consul General in Stuttgart for a personal discussion on the matter.
  • Demonstrations for Tolu's release were also held in other places (Cologne, Nuremberg, Kiel).
  • The Ulm municipal council and the Neu-Ulm city council passed a joint declaration in June 2017. In it, they call for respect for freedom of the press and for Tolu to have a fair trial based on the rule of law.
  • At the end of May 2017, the school management, parents' council and teachers of the Anna-Essinger-Gymnasium in Ulm spoke out in a press statement in favor of legal treatment and Tolu's release.
  • On October 7, 2017, a solidarity event for Tolu took place in Ulm's Kornhaus . Patron was the mayor of Ulm, Gunter Czisch . He urged the Turkish authorities to release Tolu immediately.
  • The Austrian Journalists Club awarded Tolu the Dr. Karl Renner Solidarity Prize for Journalism 2017 awarded.
  • In late 2017, an online petition was launched asking the federal government and the Foreign Office to urge Tolu to be released and the case dropped. By the end of 2018, the petition had been signed by 112,537 supporters.

factories

  • "My son stays with me!": As a political hostage in Turkish custody - and why it's not over yet. Rowohlt Paperback; 2019

See also

web links

footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Family has not had contact with Mesale Tolu for 14 days. (No longer available online.) Südwest-Presse, May 12, 2017, formerly in the original ; retrieved 12 May 2017 .  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@2Template: dead link/www.swp.de
  2. ↑ How Mesale Tolu tries to get back to everyday life . In: The daily mirror . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed on November 22, 2018]).
  3. ↑ spiegel.de October 11, 2017: The show trial. Mesale Tolu defends himself in a Turkish court.
  4. ↑ FAZ.net August 20, 2018: Ban on leaving the country against Mesale Tolu lifted.
  5. ↑ Katharina Dodel: Jailed journalist: How friends and family fight for Mesale Tolu. In: Augsburg General . May 14, 2017 ( augsburger-allgemeine.de ).
  6. ↑ a b c Frank Nordhausen: Journalist Mesale Tolu: Turkey provokes new dispute with arrest. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . 12 May 2017, retrieved 12 May 2017 .
  7. ↑ a b Ali Celikkan, Daniel-Dylan Böhmer: They didn't even allow her to call a lawyer. In: The World . May 12, 2017 ( welt.de ).
  8. ↑ a b c Rüdiger Bäßler: Wave of arrests: Berlin demands contact with Mesale Tolu. In: Stuttgart News . 12 May 2017, retrieved 13 May 2017 .
  9. ↑ Imprisoned Germans in Turkey - this is known about the case. In: The Mirror . May 12, 2017 ( mirror.de ).
  10. ↑ a b c d Arrested journalist in Turkey. In: The Daily Newspaper . May 12, 2017 ( taz.de ).
  11. ↑ Lawyer criticizes Turkish authorities. In: Stuttgart newspaper . May 15, 2017 ( stuttgarter-zeitung.de ).
  12. ↑ Gerrit Wustmann: Deadly war against the Turkish opposition. In: Telepolis . May 10, 2017 ( heise.de ).
  13. ↑ Federal government demands access to imprisoned Germans. In: The Mirror . May 12, 2017 ( mirror.de ).
  14. ↑ Turkey arrests German translator. In: Handelsblatt . May 12, 2017 ( handelsblatt.com ).
  15. ↑ Father allowed to visit German translator for the first time. In: The Time . May 15, 2017 ( zeit.de ).
  16. ↑ a b David Nau: Mesale Tolu faces at least six months imprisonment in Turkey. (No longer available online.) Südwest-Presse, May 17, 2017, formerly in the original ; retrieved May 17, 2017 .  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) @1@2Template: dead link/www.swp.de
  17. ↑ a b c Mesale Tolu's family denied entry. In: New Germany . 13 May 2017, retrieved 13 May 2017 .
  18. ↑ Federal government demands access to Tolu. In: Deutsche Welle . 12 May 2017, retrieved 15 May 2017 .
  19. ↑ Katharina Dodel: Journalist from Ulm is arrested in Turkey. In: Augsburg General . May 12, 2017 ( augsburger-allgemeine.de ).
  20. ↑ Journalist Mesale Tolu acquitted in Turkey. In: BR24. Bayerischer Rundfunk, January 17, 2022, retrieved January 18, 2022 .
  21. ↑ Father gains access for the first time. In: Stuttgart News . 15 May 2017, retrieved 15 May 2017 .
  22. ↑ Visit for imprisoned journalist from Neu-Ulm? In: Bayerischer Rundfunk May 15, 2017.
  23. ↑ Good according to the circumstances In: tagesschau.de June 2, 2017.
  24. ↑ Katharina Dodel: Ulm journalist is in cell with son (2) and 24 women. In: Augsburg General . July 7, 2017 ( augsburger-allgemeine.de ).
  25. ↑ Charges brought against Ulm journalist Mesale Tolu. In: Augsburg General . July 14, 2017 ( augsburger-allgemeine.de ).
  26. ↑ Meşale Tolu: German journalist faces up to 15 years in prison. In: Time Online . 6 August 2017, retrieved 7 August 2017 .
  27. ↑ Ludger Möllers, Ariane Attrodt: Mesale Tolu: in prison for 100 days. In: Schwäbische Zeitung . 8 August 2017, retrieved 8 August 2017 .
  28. ↑ Helmut Schuemann: How a German journalist became Erdogan's hostage . In: Tagesspiegel , August 7, 2017.
  29. ↑ tagesschau.de: Court decision: Mesale Tolu remains in custody. Retrieved August 23, 2017 .
  30. ↑ German-Turkish relations: Trial against German Mesale Tolu begins in Turkey. In: The daily mirror. October 11, 2017 ( tagesspiegel.de ), retrieved October 11, 2017.
  31. ↑ Trial in Turkey: Mesale Tolu demands acquittal In: Der Tagesspiegel. October 11, 2017 ( tagesspiegel.de ), retrieved October 11, 2017.
  32. ↑ Mesale Tolu released - but not allowed to leave Turkey , Spiegel Online, December 18, 2017.
  33. ↑ Boris Kalnoky: What's behind the mess surrounding Tolu's release. In: welt.de. December 19, 2017, retrieved December 20, 2017 .
  34. ↑ FAZ.net April 26, 2018: Mesale Tolu still not allowed to leave Turkey .
  35. ↑ sueddeutsche.de August 20, 2018: Meşale Tolu is surprisingly allowed to leave Turkey
  36. ↑ Spiegel: Mesale Tolu landed in Stuttgart
  37. ^ World: Mesale Tolu landed in Germany - "I'm not really happy"
  38. ↑ Mesale Tolu is back in Germany , FAZ, August 26, 2018
  39. ↑ Tolu's husband is allowed to leave Turkey - court lifts exit ban . TAZ, October 16, 2018
  40. ↑ Mesale Tolu becomes a trainee at the "Schwäbische Zeitung" , Meedia from June 17, 2019, retrieved June 18, 2019
  41. ↑ Turkey: Prosecutor demands acquittal of Mesale Tolu. In: The Mirror. Retrieved September 16, 2021 .
  42. ↑ Mesale Tolu acquitted in Turkey , Der Spiegel, January 17, 2022.
  43. ↑ Jailed journalist: Release immediately! Deutscher Journalisten-Verband , May 12, 2017, retrieved May 12, 2017 (press release).
  44. ↑ Mesale Tolu: Özdemir demands immediate release. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung . 12 May 2017, retrieved 12 May 2017 .
  45. ↑ Rally for imprisoned journalist in Ulm: Criticism of Turkey's behavior | Baden-Wurttemberg | SWR current . In: swr.online . ( swr.de [accessed May 14, 2017]).
  46. ↑ Ludger Möllers: Imprisoned woman from Ulm: Erdogan fans disrupt demo In: Schwäbische Zeitung , May 13, 2017
  47. ↑ Jailed journalist: Wolf asks Akinti for interview ( Memento of August 7, 2017 at the Internet Archive ) . In: Südwest-Presse , May 13, 2017
  48. ↑ Statement by the Ulm Municipal Council and the Neu-Ulm City Council. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 17, 2017 ; retrieved 2 July 2017 .
  49. ↑ Südwest Presse Online-Dienste GmbH: Mesale Tolu's teachers demand release . In: Southwest Press . May 29, 2017 ( online ). Teachers of Mesale Tolu demand release ( Memento of June 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) In: Südwest Presse of May 29, 2017
  50. ↑ Südwest Presse Online-Dienste GmbH: Solidarity concert in the Ulm granary for Mesale Tolu . In: swp.de . ( swp.de [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  51. ↑ Ludger Möllers: Ulm promises solidarity with Mesale Tolu . In: Schwäbische.de . ( schwaebische.de [accessed October 11, 2017]).
  52. ↑ Austrian Journalists Club: Dr. Karl Renner Journalism Prize 2017: Solidarity Prize to Deniz Yücel and Mesale Tolu. Retrieved November 25, 2017 .
  53. ↑ This woman must be released. Campact - Petitions platform, accessed 8 December 2018 .
  54. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk: Online petition: Over 80,000 people sign for the release of Meşale Tolu . December 13, 2017 ( br.de [accessed August 20, 2019]).
  55. ↑ Südwest Presse Online-Dienste GmbH: Human rights: Online petition for Mesale Tolu closed. 6 December 2018, retrieved 8 December 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Tolu, Meşale
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tolu Corlu, Meşale; Tolu, Mesale
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and translator
BIRTH DATE 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Ulm