Kurdish journalist sentenced to 47 years in jail

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Özgür Halk (Free People) archived copy.

The editor of Ozur Halk magazine has been sentenced to 47 years in jail by the Istanbul 11th High criminal court. Sebahattin Surmeli has been held in jail since 2006. He was denied the right to defend himself in Kurdish during his trial, and has been charged with being a member of an illegal organisation, propagation of propaganda, as well as possession of explosive material. The KCK (Union of communities in Kurdistan) is a political organisation which was founded by PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Six other journalists have been sentenced to a total of eight years in prison. In the past months, dozens of journalists have been arrested in association with KCK, which is an illegal organisation in Turkey. Many of these journalists have attested that the grounds of their arrest are questionable, but due to bias against Kurdish people, they have not had a fair trial.

These are attempts to silence the Kurdish press, but it Kurdish people now rely on citizen journalism to make sure the world hears their struggles. They are using social media sites to get their message across, and as long as the internet remains uncensored, so will they. In 1994, the offices of Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Ulke were bombed, but that didn’t stopped Kurdish journalists, nor will these arrests.