A Turkish court accepted an indictment on Wednesday demanding sentences of seven to 15 years in prison for journalists arrested in June 2022 in the Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakır (Amed).
The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has accused 18 journalists, 15 of whom are in pre-trial detention, of membership of an illegal organisation. The first hearing of the lawsuit, which was filed 10 months after the journalists’ arrest, will be held on 11 July.
In the indictment prepared against the group of journalists, which includes employees of Dicle Fırat Journalists Association, Jinnews, Mezopotamya Agency and Xwebûn Newspaper, the prosecutor’s office considered the broadcasting of the journalists’ programs and news stories on Kurdish TV channels abroad as “organisational ties”.
The content of the journalists’ reports, the video archives of the production company, the books and newspapers seized by the police during the raids and the payments made to the journalists in exchange for the programs they prepared were included in the indictment as elements justifying the accusation, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
On 8 June 2022, some 22 media workers, including 20 journalists, were detained in house raids conducted as part of an investigation by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. After eight days in custody, 15 of the journalists were arrested and sent to prison.
After the court accepted the indictment, PEN International’s head of Europe and Central Asia region Aurelia Dondo tweeted a message of solidarity with the journalists and called for their immediate release.
