Themis' eyes are now open...

In fact, the eyes of Themis, the goddess of justice, are blindfolded. This blindfold symbolizes that she makes decisions without seeing who the person standing before her is, and without looking at who they are, in order to demand justice from her.

It shows that everyone is equal before justice, and that the positions of the individuals or the political and social implications of the case being judged are irrelevant to the decision. Themis weighs the dispute before her with the two-pan scale in her hand and delivers the most just decision.

She ensures the implementation of the decision she makes with the power of justice, represented by the sword in her hand.

In authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, however, justice does not function this way. In other words, Themis' eyes are now open. In such regimes, modern criminal law rules turn into a cudgel used against the opposition. In law, this is essentially called "enemy criminal law." I say with regret that this approach has become increasingly widespread in our country recently.

According to the doctrine of enemy criminal law, those who hold power declare those who are not one of them and whom they believe to pose a danger as 'enemies' through the politicized judiciary and media, and these individuals cannot benefit from the same rights and freedoms as citizens, and laws are applied to them in a different way. Therefore, the 'created enemy' is first discredited in the eyes of the public and then isolated by being arrested.

One of the latest victims of the enemy criminal law approach, which looks at the perpetrator rather than the act, has been the esteemed journalist and writer Merdan Yanardağ.

In a program he attended, he evaluated the statements of AK Party MP Galip Ensarioğlu, such as "The state is constantly negotiating with Öcalan" and "His power and leadership over the PKK is a chance for the state," and criticized the AK Party government's stance on Imralı.

As a journalist, Yanardağ, who made statements within the framework of freedom of thought and expression as required by his profession, had an investigation launched against him for 'praising a crime and a criminal' and 'making propaganda for a terrorist organization' after some of these statements were cherry-picked by trolls and shared on social media.

IN THE NAME OF THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Reactions grew like an avalanche after a 62-second portion of the 50-minute broadcast by Merdan Yanardağ was cut and edited and shared on social media by certain individuals. Acting upon the reactions, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into Yanardağ exactly 5 days after the statement, citing that these statements had 'caused public outrage,' and Merdan Yanardağ was detained by counter-terrorism teams who came to the TELE 1 office.

The fact that this outrage emerged days later, despite there being no reaction or outrage for 5 days, shows that this edited video was prepared and presented to the media by trolls in a deliberate and malicious manner. Even more dire is that the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, mistaking this troll community for the public, acted accordingly.

'SUSPICION OF FLIGHT'

Although his lawyers appealed to the Istanbul 7th Criminal Court of Peace against Yanardağ's detention, these appeals were rejected. The court cited the suspicion of flight as the reason for rejecting the appeal. We leave it to the conscience of our esteemed readers that Merdan Yanardağ, who was also tried years ago in the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases, which were among the most important conspiracy cases in the history of the Republic, did not flee during these trials and entrusted himself to the Turkish judiciary, is now being kept in detention in such a forced and simple case due to the suspicion of flight.

In the prepared indictment, it is claimed that Yanardağ's "statements, which evaluate the organization leader as a political prisoner and claim that he is being held hostage, legitimize the methods of the PKK/KCK armed terrorist organization involving force, violence, or threats as a whole."