Journalist Zehra Doğan Arrested

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Zehra Doğan, an editor of Jin News Agency (JİNHA) which had been closed with a statutory decree under the State of Emergency was taken into custody in a police search while driving from Diyarbakır to Mardin province to visit her family.

According to a report of Dicle News Agency (Dihaber), Doğan was taken into custody on the grounds that there was a final judgement about him and was sent to Diyarbakır E-type Closed Prison.

Being charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" through her journalistic activities and social media postings, JİNHA editor Zehra Doğan was arrested in Nusaybin district of Mardin on July 29, 2016.

After spending four and a half months behind bars in Mardin E-type Closed Prison, she was released pending trial on December 6, 2016 in the first hearing of the trial in which she was being charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" and "being a member of a terrorist organization". The court decided that she be acquitted of the crime of "being a member of a terrorist organization" but be further tried for "propagandizing for a terrorist organization".

In March 2017, she was acquitted of "being a member of a terrorist organization" and sentenced to 2 years, 9 months and 22 days in prison for her social media postings on December 21, 2015 - December 9, 2016 and making a report about the writings of a 10 year-old boy in Nusaybin on December 22, 2015.

Her punishment was approved on June 2.

Jin News Agency, the first and only women's news agency in Turkey, was closed on October 29, 2016 through the Statutory Decree No. 675 issued under the State of Emergency. (EA/DG)