Turkey should drop charges against prominent media freedom activist Erol Önderoğlu and others who face up to 14 years behind bars on accusations that their demonstration of solidarity with a pro-Kurdish newspaper that was under government pressure promoted terrorism, the International Press Institute (IPI) said today ahead of a hearing set for Tuesday.
Önderoğlu – Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s Turkey representative and an IPI member – and others are on trial for serving as a symbolic “co-editor in chief” of daily Özgür Gündem for a single day, respectively, as part of a campaign to support media freedom that began on May 3 – World Press Freedom Day – in 2016.
Authorities accuse the paper, which was shuttered by decree in the wake of the failed July 2016 coup attempt, of having supported the outlawed militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a bloody, three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish government.
Thirty-eight of the 56 well-known journalists and others in Turkey who participated in the 2016 campaign to support Özgür Gündem are on trial in the case.
Turkey’s government detained Önderoğlu and two others – Şebnem Korur Fincancı, head of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV), and writer and academic Ahmet Nesin – in June 2016 and held them for 10 days before releasing them following international outcry. The defendants are accused of making terrorist propaganda.
The charge against Önderoğlu is related to three articles that appeared in Özgür Gündem on May 18, 2016, when Önderoğlu served in the symbolic role. The articles addressed power struggles within Turkish security forces as well as ongoing operations against the PKK in south-eastern Anatolia.
IPI Program Director Steven M. Ellis repeated IPI’s calls for the case against Önderoğlu and the others to be dismissed.
“This case is a deliberate and completely unwarranted act of intimidation, telling those who would stand up for media freedom in Turkey to ‘sit down and shut up’,” he said. “While it is only the latest chapter in the saga of pressure and harassment that pro-Kurdish journalists and media have faced for decades in Turkey, the decision to seek prison time for those who merely supported the paper’s right to publish and who had no actual responsibility for its content illustrates the lengths to which the government will go to suppress dissent.”
He continued: “This case should never have been brought and it should be dropped immediately.”
Önderoğlu, who also works for independent news agency Bianet, is widely respected internationally for his work defending media freedom. For more than 15 years, he has authored Bianet’s quarterly monitoring reports on the state of free expression in Turkey. He also has worked extensively with international watchdogs, including RSF and IPI, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media.
He is a recipient of the Journalists’ Association of Turkey’s Press Freedom Award, as well as the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)’s Dr. Erhard Busek – SEEMO Award for Better Understanding in South, East and Central Europe.
Some 151 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey, the vast majority on accusations of support for terrorism. Approximately 120 of them have been detained since the failed July 2016 coup attempt.
