Turkish court sentences 10 TRT journalists to long prison terms over alleged links to Gülen movement

A Turkish court on Wednesday ruled for 10 journalists who used to work for Turkish public broadcaster TRT in a case in which 20 TRT employees who were dismissed from their duties over their alleged links to the Gülen movement have been tried, to give prison sentences between from 6 years and 3 months to 8 years and 9 months.

According to a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, the Ankara 23. High Criminal Court sentenced the journalists Hasan Taşar, Hasan Hüseyin Örs and İbrahim Halil Öztürkeri to 8 years and 9 months imprisonment for alleged membership to the Gülen movement. The court also sentenced journalist Özden Kınık to 8 years, 1 month and 15 days of imprisonment for the same charge and ruled for the continuation of three journalists’ imprisonment.

The TRT employees Kemal Erdem, Hasan Basri Erden, Mehmet Ali Öget, Mustafa Ünal were given by the same court 7 years and 6 years prison sentences for each and İdris Selçuk was given 6 years and 3 months imprisonment. The court also gave A.F., a TRT employee who wanted to benefit from active remorse law, 1 year, 6 months and 22 days of prison sentence, but suspended the punishment.

As the TRT employee Hanife Sayılır was acquited by the court, the files of Cavit Atasever, Cihangir Çetin, Hüsamettin Kıroglu, Murat Kirti, Mustafa Altıntaş, Mustafa Beyhan, Mustafa Yazkan, Osman Zeybek and Servet Dağ were separated from the the case. These journalists are going to continue to be tried.

Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.

Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 240 journalists and media workers were in jail as of July 24, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 179 were under arrest pending trial while only 61 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 144 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.

Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.

The post Turkish court sentences 10 TRT journalists to long prison terms over alleged links to Gülen movement appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.

from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-court-sentences-10-trt-journalists-to-long-prison-terms-over-alleged-links-to-gulen-movement/