Published on 26 April 202 1

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 43346/20 Zehra DOÄžAN against Turkey lodged on 17 September 2020 communicated on 7 April 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicant is a journalist. At the time of the events giving rise to the present application, she was serving a custodial sentence as a result of the criminal proceedings in which she was convicted for disseminating propaganda in support of a terrorist organisation but acquitted of the offence of membership of the self-same terrorist organisation.

In the course of her imprisonment, she brought proceedings before the Tarsus Enforcement Court requesting her transfer to an open type correctional facility and her eventual conditional release. On 7 February 2019 the domestic court rejected her application on the grounds that she had not made a declaration “ceasing to be a member of the terrorist organisation” and given that she was held in the wing designated for terrorist offenders she could not be considered “neutral” so as to warrant her transfer to an open type correctional facility.

On 17 December 2019 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant ’ s individual application as manifestly ill-founded in a short form inadmissibility decision.

The applicant complains before the Court that the impugned reasoning of the Tarsus Enforcement Court is incompatible with her right to presumption of innocence on account of the fact that she was acquitted of the charges of membership of terrorist organisation.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Is Article 6 § 2 applicable to the impugned proceedings (see Allen v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 25424/09, §§ 92-109, ECHR 2013)?

2. If so, having regard to the fact that the applicant was acquitted in a final manner of the offence of membership of a terrorist organisation, has there been a violation of Article 6 § 2 on account of the decision of the Tarsus Enforcement Court of 7 February 2019, whereby that court considered the applicant of not having ceased to be a member of the terrorist organisation (see, for example, Alkaşı v. Turkey , no. 21107/07, §§ 28-30, 18 October 2016 and Urat v. Turkey , nos. 53561/09 and 13952/11 , § 58, 27 November 2018)?