Veysel Ok, a lawyer for three Kurdish journalists on trial, told BIRN that they were being threatened with prison solely because of their reporting on worsening human rights violations in Turkey.
Veysel Ok, a lawyer for three Kurdish journalists, told BIRN that they were being tried solely for reporting on human rights violations in eastern Turkey, which is mainly populated by Kurds.
“There is a tremendous increase in human rights violations in Turkey, particularly in eastern and southeastern cities, where the Kurds live predominantly,” Ok said. and added: “Thanks to these journalists’ reports, both Turkey and the world know about those violations.”
Ok, who also co-chairs the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, was referring to three Kurdish journalists tried this week or who will be tried next week.
Mesopotamia News Agency editor Abdurrahman Gok was released after 225 days in prison on December 5. He was in pre-trial detention for alleged membership of a terrorist organisation and terrorist propaganda.
“After I took a photo of Kemal Kurkut being shot, the systematic repression has continued until today. Detentions, house raids… The main motivation of the court is that I took those photographs to negate the statements of the police and the governor’s office,” Gok said in his defence.
Kurkut was shot dead by a police during a celebration in Diyarbakır in 2017. Gok documented the killing.
A court on December 7 ordered another Kurdish journalist, Dicle Muftuoglu, co-chair of the Dicle First Journalists Association, to remain in prison.
The prosecution seeks a 37.5-year prison sentence for Muftuoglu. It claims, based on a secret witness, that Muftuoglu was in charge of the Mesopotamia News Agency under the KCK’s Press Committee which it called a structure of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK.
Sedat Yilmaz, Mesopotamia News Agency editor, will go before the court on December 14, charged with “founding and administering a terrorist organisation” and “membership of a terrorist organisation”. The prosecution seeks a 37.5-year prison sentence for him as well.
“These court trials have no legal basis. They are clearly political cases,” Ok told BIRN.
Ok added that growing pressure on Kurdish journalists reflects the Turkish government’s policies towards Kurds in general.
“Since 2014, there has been serious disagreement and conflict between the Kurdish political movement and the state. Consequently, NGOs, unions and media houses run by Kurds were targeted and pressured,” Ok said.
“This is the case for these three journalists. Kurdish journalists do the most dangerous journalism in Turkey, without having international solidarity,” Ok added.
Media organisations and rights groups say that Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, also exerting pressure on the media through court cases, fines and prison sentences.
Turkey ranked 165th out of 180 countries in 2023 in the latest press freedom index issued by the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF.
Source : Balkan Insight
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