Published on 2 June 2009
23 September 2009 - Prosecutors violate online free expression to protect copyright
2 September 2009 - Government urged to include press freedom in its opening to Kurdish minority
5 August 2009 - Beatings still method preferred by local officials for silencing journalists
Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the detention of journalist Aylin Duruoglu, the editor of the daily Vatan’s website, Gazetevatan.com, for the past five weeks on a charge of collaborating with an outlawed armed organisation. Arrested on 27 April, she is now being held in Istanbul’s Bakirköy prison.
“Duruoglu is the victim of inexplicable judicial persecution,” Reporters Without Borders said. “If the authorities want to try her, they should do so without delay and ensure that the trial is fair. In the meantime, there are no grounds for continuing her arbitrary detention, which has already gone on for too long.”
In the course of major police operation on 27 April, Duruoglu was arrested on a charge of collaborating with the Revolutionary Headquarters, an armed group on the Turkish government’s list of terrorist organisations, because she knew one if its alleged members, writer and former journalist Ohran Yilmazkaya.
They studied together at Istanbul University and, as a journalist, Duruoglu attended the launch of one his books. She denies the charge.
Turkey is ranked 103rd out of 173 countries in the latest Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.
He is the editor of Erk, the last opposition newspaper in Uzbekistan until it was banned by the authorities in 1993, and he was jailed on 18 August 1999 in the wave of repression after the failed assassination attempt on President Islam Karimov in Tashkent on 16 February 1999.
