Excerpt
VAN, TURKEY/WASHINGTON —
Eighteen journalists, nearly all of whom work for Kurdish media outlets, stood trial at hearings across Turkey this week.
Lawyers and media rights groups say the trials show how Turkey’s laws on terrorism and protests can be used to detain or harass journalists.
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“The order is problematic because it only recognizes journalists who are given permits by the government to cover protests,” said Erselan Aktan, an Istanbul-based lawyer who has represented dozens of journalists in recent years.
Nearly all those in court this week face accusations of belonging to or creating propaganda for a terrorist organization—often a reference to the militant group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Others face charges of defying Law 2911, which regulates public meetings and demonstrations, according to the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), a Turkey-based group that offers legal support to journalists.
“My previous telephone conversations with Selahattin Demirtas were also included in my court file as a crime.”
As of August, data by the Stockholm Center for Freedom, an advocacy groups that documents human rights abuses with a special focus on Turkey, showed 174 journalists either detained pending trial or serving sentences and a further 167 accused of a crime but who are in exile or at large. - https://stockholmcf.org/updated-list/
“We don't have any problems of that nature in terms of freedoms,” Erdogan told U.S. broadcaster CBS. - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-turkish-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan-face-the-nation-09-26-2021/
Turkey also ranks poorly on the World Press Freedom Index, coming in at 153 out of 180 countries, where 1 is the freest, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. - https://rsf.org/en/taxonomy/term/145
Sources
21/10/17
KurdishDB
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