Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of July 2, 2017
Turkish president tells German newspaper jailed correspondent is a terrorist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in an interview published yesterday, told the German newspaper Die Zeit that Die Welt Turkey correspondent, Turkish-German dual national Deniz Yücel, is a terrorist because he interviewed a leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of June 18, 2017
Prosecutor asks to reopen investigation into journalist for interview Public prosecutor Umut Tepe petitioned a Turkish court to allow him to reopen his investigation into jailed Cumhuriyet reporter Ahmet Şık on charges of producing propaganda for a terrorist organization, Cumhuriyet reported yesterday. Tepe had previously dropped charges against the journalist for publishing an interview with…
Moroccan website director held in solitary confinement pending trial
Moroccan security forces on June 6, 2017, arrested Mohamed al-Asrihi, a video journalist and the director of the opposition news website Rif24, from the home of activist Mohsen Athari in the northern town of Trogout, where he was hiding, according to news reports and a statement from Rif24.
Saudi journalist imprisoned for ‘slandering ruler,’ communicating with TV stations
The Specialized Court of Appeals in Riyadh in April 2017 upheld a Riyadh criminal court’s conviction of Saudi journalist Nadhir al-Majid on charges of “slandering the ruler” and sending electronic messages to TV channels and human rights organizations, according to Agence France-Presse and the Gulf Center for Human Rights. Al-Majid was initially convicted on January…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of June 11, 2017
Twelve witnesses against journalist say testimony extracted under torture Twelve out of 13 witnesses prosecutors called yesterday to testify that Nedim Türfent, a former reporter for the shuttered, pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), was a member of a terrorist organization recanted their written testimony, saying police extracted it under torture, the daily Evrensel reported. Police…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of June 4, 2017
News websites blocked for 25th, 44th time, respectively The Turkish telecommunications regulator BTK blocked access to the website of the pro-Kurdish daily newspaper Özgürlükçü Demokrasi–for the 25th time–and to the leftist news website sendika.org–for the 44th time, the press freedom collective Ben Gazeteciyim (“I am a journalist”) reported yesterday. Özgürlükçü Demokrasi continues to publish at…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 28, 2017
Chair and editor of shuttered news agency arrested Police in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır on the night of May 31 arrested Zekeriya Güzüpek, the former chair of the board of the shuttered pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), and Mehmet Ali Ertaş, a former Kurdish-language editor at the news agency, the news website Artı…
Kurdish authorities detain journalist who reported on theft verdict
New York, May 24, 2017–Authorities in northern Iraq should immediately release Aram Bakhtiar, a journalist for the independent broadcaster NRT, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Kurdish security forces arrested Bakhtiar on May 22 on accusations of defaming a judge, NRT deputy newsroom manager Soran Rashid told CPJ. The channel’s director, Awat Ali, today…