Turkey

Vedat Kursun, the former editor of Turkey’s only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat, was on Thursday given a sentence of 166 years and six months in prison by a court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Kursun was convicted under articles 314-3 and 220-6 of the criminal code and article 7-2 of the anti-terrorism law on charges of membership of...

The Turkish interior ministry has asked the judicial authorities to investigate five police officers attached to the Security Directorate in Istanbul on suspicion of failing to take the threats against newspaper editor Hrant Dink seriously and failing to protect him, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Dink, who was of Armenian origin, was gunned down in January 2007. The five policemen...

Vedat Kursun, the biggest shareholder in Turkey’s only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat (Free Country), was sentenced to three years in prison by a court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on March 30 on a charge of propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. The newspaper’s managing editor until jailed last year, Kursun is the...

A number of Turkish journalists are facing sentences for doing their job. Since an amendment to the anti-terrorism law took effect in 2006, media personnel have been exposed to the possibility of long spells in jail just for covering ordinary news developments including judicial proceedings, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. One of the latest victims is photographer Nurettin Kurt of the...

A Turkish appellate court should overturn the unjust convictions of publisher and editor Haci Bogatekin, who faces several years in prison on various “insult” charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Bogatekin, owner of the biweekly Gerger Firat and editor of the news website Gergerfirat, was convicted March 2 on charges of “insulting” state prosecutors and “offending the...

Aylin Duruoglu, editor the Vatan newspaper’s website, Gazetevatan.com, was granted a conditional release by an Istanbul court on February 23, 10 months after her arrest on April 27 for alleged links to a clandestine armed group called Devrimci Karargah (Revolutionary Headquarters), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Nine other people who were arrested in the same operation, including...

A court in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, has passed a 21-year jail sentence on Ozan Kilinç, the owner and editor of the country’s only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. After finding Kilinç guilty of criminal propaganda in support of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the court sentenced him in...

Hackers broke into the website of the Turkish and Armenian-language newspaper Agos Thursday and succeeded in posting a photo of Ogün Samast – the youth who is on trial for the January 2007 murder of the newspaper’s founder, Hrant Dink – together with a Turkish flag background and around 10 lines of ultra-nationalistic comments, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Headlined “Our good...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) on Thursday expressed shock at the conditions in which the trial of the alleged killers of Hrant Dink was being held after attending the 12th hearing in the case on February 8. Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, was shot dead in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. He was the editor of the bi-lingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos and a critic of Turkey’s...

Cihan Hayırsevener, editor of the local daily Güney Marmara’da Yaşam, was shot three times in the leg on December 19 while walking to his office in Bandirma, a town 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Istanbul, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. One bullet hit a major artery in his left leg, causing intensive bleeding. He was taken by...