{"id":1139262,"date":"2023-07-11T22:01:37","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T22:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpj.org\/?p=299197"},"modified":"2023-07-11T22:01:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T22:01:37","slug":"terrorism-trial-of-17-kurdish-journalists-media-worker-begins-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/07\/11\/terrorism-trial-of-17-kurdish-journalists-media-worker-begins-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrorism trial of 17 Kurdish journalists, media worker begins in Turkey\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Diyarbak\u0131r, July 11, 2023\u2014In response to Tuesday\u2019s opening<\/a> of the trial of 17 Kurdish journalists and a media worker on terrorism charges<\/a> in a court in Diyarbak\u0131r, Turkey, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Turkish authorities must immediately release the defendants and drop the terrorism charges, which are solely based on their journalistic work,” said \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6\u011fret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities should also take necessary steps to ensure that pretrial arrest cannot be weaponized against the members of the press.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journalists and media worker were charged<\/a> with membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK). They are employed by local AR\u0130, PEL, and P\u0130YA production companies and produce Kurdish-focused shows and content, which the indictment alleged were propaganda for PKK. The government has designated PKK as a terrorist organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defendants \u2014 15 of whom have been under pretrial arrest for 13 months \u2014 have denied the charges and, if convicted, face up to 15 years imprisonment under Turkey\u2019s anti-terrorism laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey was the world\u2019s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with 40 behind bars<\/a> at the time of CPJ\u2019s December 1, 2022, prison census. Of those, more than half were Kurdish journalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CPJ\u2019s email to the Diyarbak\u0131r chief prosecutor\u2019s office did not receive a response.<\/p>\n\n


\r\nThis content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists<\/a> and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diyarbak\u0131r, July 11, 2023\u2014In response to Tuesday\u2019s opening of the trial of 17 Kurdish journalists and a media worker on terrorism charges in a court in Diyarbak\u0131r, Turkey, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement: \u201cTurkish authorities must immediately release the defendants and drop the terrorism charges, which are solely based on their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5097,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65767,45257,7904,22127,523,13653,8291,31358,94,42913,65766,65768,30408,42642,27150,537,8452,1320,4575,3684],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139263,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139262\/revisions\/1139263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}