Deniz Yücel (; born 10 September 1973) is a German-Turkish journalist and publisher. He has been a contributor to several German publications, most notably ''

Die Tageszeitung ''Die Tageszeitung'' (, “The Daily Newspaper”), is counted as being one of modern Germany's most important newspapers and amongst the top seven. taz is stylized as ''die tageszeitung'' and commonly referred to as ''taz'', is a cooperative-own ...

'' and ''

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...

''.

Espionage accusations and imprisonment

The Turkish government repeatedly accused Yücel of espionage on behalf of Germany's federal intelligence agency, the

Bundesnachrichtendienst The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence headq ...

, and in support of the alleged terrorist organizations FETÖ and

PKK The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southea ...

. The government further claimed that Yücel aided these two groups in inciting violence in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. In a speech in 2017, Turkish President

Recep Tayyip Erdogan Recep may refer to: People Surname * Aziz Recep (born 1992), German-Greek footballer * Sibel Recep (born 1987), Swedish pop singer Given name * Recep Adanır (born 1929), Turkish footballer * Recep Akdağ (born 1960), Turkish physician and po ...

declared that Yücel "is a spy, not a journalist". On 14 February 2017, Yücel was formally indicted by a Turkish court and imprisoned for espionage. His incarceration was widely criticized by journalists, politicians, and the German public.

Sigmar Gabriel Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germ ...

, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, immediately summoned the Turkish ambassador to the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

to protest Yücel's sentence. On 16 February 2018, just over a year after his imprisonment began, Yücel was released. On 28 June 2019, the

Constitutional Court of Turkey The Constitutional Court of Turkey ( tr, , sometimes abbreviated as ''AYM'') is the highest legal body for constitutional review in Turkey. It "examines the constitutionality, in respect of both form and substance, of laws, decrees having the for ...

ruled that the detention of Yücel had been unlawful. Yücel received strong public and political support in Germany throughout his imprisonment such as the one of

Cem Özdemir Cem Özdemir (, ; born 21 December 1965) is a German politician who currently serves as Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture since 2021. He is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens party. Between 2008 and 2018, Özdemir co-chaired the Gr ...

or the one of the popular Twitter hashtag #FreeDeniz campaign. The German newspaper ''

'', for which Yücel is a correspondent, offered to forward letters of support to the journalist. It also published Yücel's prison address in Turkey and suggested that letters written in Turkish could be sent directly to the journalist's prison cell. The Prison letter reading commission at times only let him read the letters of his mother-in-law, but not those of his wife. On 25 January 2022, the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...

(ECHR) ruled that Turkey had violated Deniz Yücel's human rights. The court ruled that Yücel's pre-trial detention violated his rights in three cases, including his right to liberty and security, right to compensation for unlawful detention, as well as freedom of expression.

Works

* ''Taksim ist überall. Die Gezi-Bewegung und die Zukunft der Türkei.'' 2014, . * ''Und morgen die ganze Türkei. Der lange Aufstieg des Recep Tayyip Erdoğan'', in: ''Kursbuch'' 188, 27 November 2016 (excerpt
here
. * ''Wir sind ja nicht zum Spaß hier.'' Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2018, * ''Agentterrorist. Eine Geschichte über Freiheit und Freundschaft, Demokratie und Nichtsodemokratie.'' Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2019,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yucel, Deniz Turkish journalists German journalists German male journalists German newspaper journalists Journalists imprisoned in Turkey 1973 births Prisoners and detainees of Turkey Living people Articles containing video clips Die Welt people Die Tageszeitung people 21st-century German journalists

Espionage accusations and imprisonment

Works

See also

References

External links