Journalist in Jail for Attending DTP Symposium

Dicle News Agency (DİHA) reporter İbrahim Açıkyer was sentenced to ten months behind bars under charges of "spreading propaganda for the PKK organization", the outlawed armed Kurdistan Workers Party, according to article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law (TMY).

Açıkyer and another 13 defendants had been taken into police custody when they were attending a symposium organized by the Konak District Youth Parliament of the banned pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) on 27 July 2006 in Izmir. In the hearing on 25 November, all 14 defendants were convicted by the Izmir 10^th High Criminal Court.

The court did not accept the defence speech of Açıkyer's lawyers who put forward that their client attended the symposium as a journalist and followed the event out of professional reasons. The lawyers requested Açıkyer's acquittal in the final hearing of the five-year trial. However, the court ruled for a prison sentence of ten months.

Mazlum Tekdağ, former DTP member of parliament, and several other defendants each received prison sentences of one year and six months. The defence lawyers are preparing an appeal since the trial and the convictions were exclusively based on the records of the police.

RSF: Increase in trials against journalists based on Anti-Terror Law

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued an announcement on 22 November, drawing attention to an increase of investigations and trials under the Turkish Anti-Terror Law.

RSF called to release journalists Neşe Düzel, Adnan Demir, İsmail Beşikçi, Zeycan Balcı Şimşek, İrfan Aktan and Merve Erol. The Paris-based organization said, "Reporters Without Borders deplores Turkey's abuse of its anti-terrorism law to censor and punish journalists who raise the issue of its Kurdish minority or quote certain Kurdish leaders" (EÖ/VK).