Turkey suing 11 Kurdish journalists
QAMIHSLI, Syria (North Press) – Eleven journalists with pro-Kurdish media are facing up to 11 years in prison for alleged membership of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in a trial due to open in Ankara on 16 May, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The RSF called on the Turkish authorities to stop using the courts to muzzle opposition media outlets.
In April, the Turkish authorities carried out raids and arrested at least three Kurdish journalists, accusing them of having ties to the PKK.
The raids lead to the arrest of at least 128 people and as many 150. They included 11 journalists – among them the editor at the Mesopotamia Agency, Abd al-Rahman Kok; correspondents of the same agency, Ahmed Kanbal and Muhammad Shah Aruj; the director of the Yeni Yasham newspaper, Othman Akin; an official from the Khobun newspaper, Kadri Esen; an editor Gun News, Brittan Januser; and the journalists Salih Kalash, Ramzi Akaya, Mehmet Yalgen and Michael Barot.
“The Turkish authorities must stop manipulating the justice system for political purposes,” the RSF stressed.
In addition, the organization called for the immediate release of all Kurdish journalists detained in Turkish prisons, who “make it one of the biggest jailers of journalists in the world.”
The source pointed out that 32 pro-Kurdish journalists have been jailed by the Turkish authorities since June 2022 and are still being held in Diyarbakir or Ankara.
RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index ranked Turkey as the 165th out of 180 countries.