Indictment prepared against Kurdish journalists 10 months after their arrest

The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has prepared its indictment against 18 Kurdish journalists, 10 months after jailing 14 of them on “terrorism” charges. The prosecutors seek 15 years in prison for each of the journalists, considering the airing of their news reports on foreign-based Kurdish TV channels as “organizational connections.”

Wednesday April 12 2023 06:22 pm

Duvar English

Turkish police on June 8, 2022 detained 18 journalists in the southeastern Diyarbakır province as part of an investigation run by the provincial public prosecutor’s office.

After being held for eight days in the police department, the journalists were on June 16, 2022 transferred to the courthouse where a judge ruled for the arrest of 14 of them, while released four under judicial control measures.

Ten months after their imprisonment, the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office prepared a 728-page-long indictment against the journalists, accusing them of “terrorism” charges, Mezopotamya news agency reported on April 12.

The Diyarbakır 4th Heavy Penal Court accepted the indictment and set the first hearing date as July 11, 2023.

The indictment listed the names of programs on Kurdish TV channels that broadcast abroad and considered the airing of the journalists’ news reports on these TV channels as “organizational connections.”

The indictment sought between 7.5 and 15 years in jail for each of the 18 journalists on “terrorism” charges, based on these programs.