30 July 2007

Alert

Court orders historian and "Agos" weekly to pay retired ambassador compensation for "violating" his personal rights, "insulting" him


Incident details

Taner Akcam

legal action
(BIANET/IFEX) - The Ankara 13th Civil Court of First Instance has accepted part of the court case filed by retired ambassador Sükrü Elekdag against the "Agos" weekly newspaper and historian Taner Akcam.

Akcam wrote an article entitled "Gündüz Aktan and the Saik Problem in the Genocide". It was published by "Agos" on 6, 20 and 27 January and 3, 10 and 17 February 2007. Elekdag filed a suit for 20,000 YTL (approx. US$15,315) claiming that the article "violated" his personal rights and "insulted" him.

The court agreed on a compensation claim of 10,000 YTL (approx. US$7,676) to be paid by Akcam and the newspaper.

The lawyers of "Agos" stated that the court decree was incongruous with the European Convention on Human Rights and other decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights. They are planning an appeal.

The article in question was first published in the "Birikim Journal" in November 2005 and then as a series in the "Agos" newspaper.



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