Insult

Court sentences former Zaman journalist A court in Uşak on November 14 convicted Ali Ünal, a former columnist for the shuttered daily Zaman, of “founding and leading an armed terrorist organization” and sentenced him to 19 years and six months in prison, the news website Diken reported. The court acquitted the journalist of coup-related charges,…

Journalists in court An Istanbul court on November 5 convicted Yasir Kaya, a sports journalist formerly with Fenerbahçe TV or FBTV, of “being a member of a [terrorist] organization” and sentenced him to six years and three months in prison, according to reports. Kaya remained free pending appeal, according to the report. CPJ previously documented…

Court sentences journalists over Özgür Gündem campaignAn Istanbul court on October 24 sentenced three journalists to jail for “insulting the president” in the now shuttered pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem, the daily Evrensel reported.

Journalists jailed Police on September 24 briefly detained and questioned Ergün Demir, chief editor of Akatos Haber, a local news website in northwestern Kocaeli province, the leftist daily Birgün reported.

New York, July 31, 2018–Belarusian authorities should end their harassment of independent blogger Sergey Petrukhin and allow him to work without fear of reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A court today charged Petrukhin with disobedience of an official order, according to the independent Belarusian Association of Journalists.

Ahead of election, OSCE highlights restrictive media environment In a report on Turkey’s elections this month, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said, “The media landscape is dominated by outlets whose owners are considered affiliated with the government or depend on public contracts.” The report added that Turkey’s constitution “Contains a general…

Cartoonist arrested for “insulting the president,” paroled Turkish authorities on June 5 released on parole Nuri Kurtcebe, a veteran political cartoonist, who was sent to prison on June 3 after a high court rejected his appeal, according to the daily Evrensel and Kurtcebe’s lawyer, Erdem Akyüz, who spoke to the news website OdaTV.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, along with more than 50 international and local digital rights organizations and media outlets, joined calls on Honduran lawmakers this week to reject a proposed law that would regulate online speech.

New York, February 8, 2018–A specialized criminal court in Saudi Arabia sentenced al-Watan columnist Saleh al-Shehi to five years in prison for “insulting the royal court,” and imposed a five-year travel ban that will go into effect on his release, according to a report published today in the privately-owned Saudi newspaper Okaz. Saudi security forces…

The satirical magazine Titanic appears to have been an unlikely victim of Germany’s recently adopted online anti-hate speech law, NetzDG. “We were truly surprised,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief Tim Wolff told CPJ, as he explained how Twitter blocked the Titanic account for 48 hours after the magazine republished a post Twitter had deleted, in which Titanic…