6.  The applicant was born in 1973 and lives in Istanbul. 7.  On 1 September 1997, as editor of the newspaper Günlük Emek (Everyday Work), the applicant published in issue number 297 an article entitled “Giving the conscripts a send-off, and collective memory” (Asker uğurlamalar ve toplumsal hafıza) signed by Barış Avşar. 8.  On 4 December 1997 the public prosecutor at the Military Court of the General Staff (“the General Staff Court”), acting under Article 58 of the Military Penal Code and Article 155 of the Criminal Code, charged the applicant with incitement, by publication of the above article, to evade military service (askerlikten soğutma). 9.  The applicant informed the General Staff Court that the article had been written by Mr Şevki Akbaba, who had signed it with a pseudonym. 10.  In a judgment of 20 October 1998 the General Staff Court initially sentenced the applicant to two months’ imprisonment and a fine of 60,000 Turkish liras (TRL). By virtue of section 4 of the Execution of Sentence Act (Law no. 647), which provided for prison sentences imposed on editors to be commuted to fines, the applicant was ultimately ordered to pay a “heavy fine” of TRL 1,160,000.[1] 11.  In its judgment the General Staff Court referred to the following passage from the offending article:
“This last week in bus stations has been a time for sending the August conscripts on their way... The novice soldiers setting off – “but you’ll soon be back”, people tell them to console them – already seemed during these ritual send-offs to be plunging into war by donning “invisible khaki”. It was a time when war seemed rather attractive; the congratulations and praises made it seem like a warm nest, almost as warm as a mother’s arms, into whose embrace they would have liked to run. What we saw at each of these ceremonies shows that the thing has become a collective hysteria and that this hysteria has also spawned its own indispensable attributes: the traditional drum and clarinet, the famous three-crescented flag, sometimes accompanied by the corn-ear flag of the RP [Welfare Party] or the rose-bearing flag of the BBP [Great Union Party] ... Warm-up ceremonies are organised for those setting off for the war, the exaltation felt on killing a man is the exaltation of winning a match and, what is more, the killer justifies his act by speaking of the love he has for his fatherland and his nation. In short, it can’t be said that what we’re doing is right... Those verses, written by a fallen soldier, are carved on his own tombstone. He will no longer see those who gather to give the conscripts a send-off, no longer hear the drum, the clarinet or the gunfire, not be able to read the verses written on his tombstone, on seeing which he would perhaps have felt repelled by the determinism they convey. Because from now on he is reduced to a title: a martyr... It is because the State does not recognise as such the war which is etched deeply into the collective life and the collective memory that, apart from a small minority, those who return from it after losing an arm, a leg or an eye receive no allowance. These people who are no longer capable of meeting their own needs are being deceived by talk of fictitious jobs. ‘There is a war, but not officially; you are war-wounded, but you count for nothing.’”
In its considerations the General Staff Court pointed out that military service was a constitutional duty and that the applicant, by denigrating military service had also denigrated the struggle against the PKK, a terrorist organisation which killed soldiers, police officers, teachers and civil servants. It held that the offending article contained terms contrary to morality and public order. 12.  Relying on Articles 6 and 10 of the Convention, the applicant appealed on points of law to the Military Court of Cassation. He argued that the General Staff Court had given its judgment without hearing his defence on the merits of the charge. He submitted that as a civilian he should not have been tried by that court, and alleged that it was not independent or impartial. 13.  The applicant was allegedly not provided with a copy of the opinion of the Principal Public Prosecutor at the Military Court of Cassation. 14.  In a final judgment of 10 February 1999 the Military Court of Cassation upheld the first-instance judgment. It observed that the applicant’s submissions on the merits had been filed by his lawyer, and that the fact that he had been tried by a military court was in accordance with the law.