Hasan Cemal Probed for Allegedly Insulting Turkish President

ISTANBUL — An investigation has been launched against journalist Hasan Cemal into his article titled “The Sultan in the Palace is culpable for the bloodshed,” Hürriyet daily reports.

Cemal was summoned to testify on Sept. 17 and the probe was launched purportedly on the charge of “insulting the Turkish president” in his article published on news website T24 on Aug. 12.

“We as journalists have been through hard times thus far with juntas, military coups, state of emergency, martial law. But, what hurts at this point is this was the first lawsuit filed against me since March 12,” Cemal said, recalling Turkey’s second military coup on March 12, 1971, which is known as the “coup by memorandum.”

Cemal was born in 1944 in Istanbul and is currently a columnist for T24.

He graduated from the Ankara University Political Sciences School in 1965 and started his career in journalism in weekly magazine Devrim in Ankara. Among dailies he worked for were Cumhuriyet, Yeni Ortam, Anka Ajansi and Günaydin. Most recently, Cemal had worked at daily Milliyet for 15 years, but he was sorted out for his articles in 2013.

Cemal received the prestigious Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from Harvard University this year.

The grandson of one of the major executors of the Armenian Genocide Cemal Pasha, Hasan Cemal, has published a book entitled 1915: The Armenian Genocide. “To reject the Genocide means to be a part of the crime against humanity. Moreover, the pain of 1015 is not history, it is an up to date question,” Cemal stated.