THE German federation journalists DJV advises professional media workers not to travel either for business or personal reasons to Turkey, after the temporary arrest of a German parliamentarian at the beginning of the month.
Yokai Akbulut’s arrest upon entering Turkey in early August shows “once again that (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s autocracy views its critics as militant enemies of the state and persecutes them when it gets the chance to do so.” “, said Frank Uberal, head of DJV, according to a statement issued by the union today and relayed by the Athens News Agency.
If parliamentary immunity does not protect against arrest, the risk for journalists is even greater, DJV emphasizes.
Akbulut, a member of parliament for Germany’s Die Linke (Left) party, was briefly arrested in Turkey on August 3. An arrest warrant, which was later canceled by the Turkish authorities, had been issued against her for “alleged terrorist propaganda”, Akbulut told the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper.
The Turkish-born politician, of Kurdish-Alevi origin, has been an MP since 2017.
He has repeatedly criticized the Turkish government and is campaigning to lift a German ban on the activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization that Ankara and the EU, among others, label as terrorist.
After her arrest, the German embassy in Ankara and the German Foreign Ministry intervened and the MP was released.
“Anyone, as a journalist, who has made critical comments against Turkey, its president or the ruling Justice and Development Party in their own articles and on social media, should not travel to the country,” Uberal stressed. Otherwise, he faces incalculable risks, he added.
Source: News Beast
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