Duran, Istanbul correspondent for the French-language daily Liberation and a veteran reporter who has worked for the Agence France-Presse news agency, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the now-defunct pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem, and other Turkish daily newspapers, began serving a 10-month jail term in Saray Prison for violating provisions of Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law.
Duran was tried and convicted in December 1994 of propagandizing on behalf of an outlawed organization under Article 7 of the Anti-Terror Law, and his sentence was ratified by the Court of Cassation in October 1997. The charge stemmed from an article he wrote about his interview with Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which appeared in Özgür Gündem on April 12, 1994.
