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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Istanbul's High Criminal Court has ordered the release of a Rudaw reporter detained in Turkey for over seven months, the reporter's lawyer confirmed on Wednesday.
Istanbul-based reporter Rawin Sterk was detained by Turkish authorities on February 29 while reporting on an unfolding migrant crisis at Edirne, on Turkey's border with Greece and Bulgaria. Also detained was Rudaw cameraman Mehmet Sirin Akgun, and Mesopotamian News Agency (Mezopotamya Ajansi) correspondents Idris Sayilgan and Naci Kaya.
Sterk's lawyers attended the court hearing in Istanbul on Wednesday. Sterk himself took part via video from Sincan prison in Ankara, the site of his imprisonment.
Turkish authorities had accused the journalists of “filming in a military area”. Sterk was later moved to the capital city of Ankara, where a court formally charged him with “propagating for a terrorist organization” – in reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Ankara has designated the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
Before the court's decision, Sterk's lawyer Gursel Demir was confident that "there is no evidence to prove that Rawin Sterk has committed any crime."
"All the propaganda which claims that Rawin is a member of a banned terrorist organization are baseless accusations," Demir told Rudaw.
International press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders said after the verdict that it was "relieved" by Sterk's release, but also called on Turkish authorities to lift its "baseless accusations" against him.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly raised concerns over Turkey’s increasingly hostile treatment of journalists, particularly since an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. Reporters Without Borders has previously called Turkey the “world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists”.
Two days before Sterk's hearing, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Turkish authorities to drop all charges against Sterk and to "cease filing bogus terrorism charges against the press".
It also called for the release of Selman Keles, a photographer for the now-shuttered Dicle News Agency, who has faced charges of "terrorist organization membership" since being arrested in 2017.
“Journalists Rawin Sterk and Selman Keles should never have faced trumped-up terrorism charges for their work, let alone have these charges hanging over them for months–and in Keles’ case, years–thanks to Turkey’s slow and unjust legal system,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York.
“Authorities must immediately release Sterk, who remains at high risk in prison amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and drop the charges against both journalists,” the August 31 statement read.
Istanbul-based reporter Rawin Sterk was detained by Turkish authorities on February 29 while reporting on an unfolding migrant crisis at Edirne, on Turkey's border with Greece and Bulgaria. Also detained was Rudaw cameraman Mehmet Sirin Akgun, and Mesopotamian News Agency (Mezopotamya Ajansi) correspondents Idris Sayilgan and Naci Kaya.
Sterk's lawyers attended the court hearing in Istanbul on Wednesday. Sterk himself took part via video from Sincan prison in Ankara, the site of his imprisonment.
Turkish authorities had accused the journalists of “filming in a military area”. Sterk was later moved to the capital city of Ankara, where a court formally charged him with “propagating for a terrorist organization” – in reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Ankara has designated the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
Before the court's decision, Sterk's lawyer Gursel Demir was confident that "there is no evidence to prove that Rawin Sterk has committed any crime."
"All the propaganda which claims that Rawin is a member of a banned terrorist organization are baseless accusations," Demir told Rudaw.
International press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders said after the verdict that it was "relieved" by Sterk's release, but also called on Turkish authorities to lift its "baseless accusations" against him.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly raised concerns over Turkey’s increasingly hostile treatment of journalists, particularly since an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. Reporters Without Borders has previously called Turkey the “world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists”.
Two days before Sterk's hearing, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Turkish authorities to drop all charges against Sterk and to "cease filing bogus terrorism charges against the press".
It also called for the release of Selman Keles, a photographer for the now-shuttered Dicle News Agency, who has faced charges of "terrorist organization membership" since being arrested in 2017.
“Journalists Rawin Sterk and Selman Keles should never have faced trumped-up terrorism charges for their work, let alone have these charges hanging over them for months–and in Keles’ case, years–thanks to Turkey’s slow and unjust legal system,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York.
“Authorities must immediately release Sterk, who remains at high risk in prison amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and drop the charges against both journalists,” the August 31 statement read.
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