No end to harassment of Kurdish media

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release of Ismail Eskin, a reporter with the Kurdish news agency DIHA, after five months in pre-trial detention but condemns a physical attack on another DIHA reporter, Pinar Ural, in Istanbul. A journalism student at Kocaeli University, Eskin was arrested on 4 December and accused of activities on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). A judge granted him a conditional release when his trial opened on 19 May. The next hearing has been set for September. Ural was attacked on a bus after covering a demonstration against the death penalty on the campus of the Istanbul Technical University on 17 May. Her assailant, a man who had followed her from the demonstration, accused her of being a “traitor.” After asking the bus driver to open the door, Ural managed to get away. She said she would file a complaint. Reporters Without Borders continues to be concerned about Azadiya Welat, the country’s only Kurdish-language daily. Its editor, Mehdi Tanrikulu, has been freed after five months in prison for wanting to defend himself in Kurdish in court but he is still facing trail for making what the authorities claim was an overly positive reference to a PKK leader in the 23 January issue. The press freedom organisation reiterates its support for Tanrikulu, who is facing up to 40 years in prison if found guilty of belonging to the PKK, and urges the court to show clemency and to respect the freedom of the Kurdish media. Reporters Without Borders also hails a campaign by Kurdish groups for the release of former Azadiya Welat editor Vedat Kursun, whose 166-year jail sentence was condemned by the press freedom organisation in a 13 May release. A petition for Kursun’s release was launched at a news conference on 17 May at the headquarters of the Association of Journalists of South-East Anatolia. Along with placards saying “Vedat Kursun is not alone” and “Free Vedat Kursun,” there were also placards that said “Free the Kurdish language” because the jailing of Kurdish journalists is seen as an attack on the Kurdish population’s culture and language. The campaign by Kurdish journalists is due to last a month, at the end of which copies of the petition and signatures will be given to European institutions and NGOs in order to draw their attention to Kursun’s fate. Filiz Koçali, the editor of the Kurdish daily Günlük, reminded the news conference that the editors of nearly all the main Kurdish media are now in prison. “This government wants to suppress the Kurdish media by using the courts and the anti-terrorism law,” she said. Reporters Without Borders reiterates its condemnation of the attitude of the Turkish authorities to toward Kurdish newspapers. The sentences being imposed on Kurdish journalists are absurd and disproportionate and stem from questionable political motives.