Jailed, bailed, jailed again, released… until last week he received a text message on his cell phone to return to jail. The reason for him Turkish journalist Baris Pehlivan, who has been prosecuted for the umpteenth time since 2020.
Last Wednesday, the Turkish Ministry of Justice informed him, with a message on his mobile phone, that he must appear until August 15» in the detention center of Marmaras, the former prison of Silivria where many dissidents are held.
“Pehlivan has already been imprisoned four times for his positions as a journalist“, his supporters underlined today, condemning the decision of the Turkish judiciary in a report signed by about 20 international organizations to defend the freedom of the press – including Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the European Federation of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, of the International Press Institute and the literary association PEN International.
Two of Pehlivan’s four previous imprisonments were for “one day”in February and May.
The director of the Oda TV network and six other journalists were sentenced in 2021 to three years and nine months in prison for violating the law on secret services. They had revealed in 2020 the death of a Turkish intelligence official in Libya, where Ankara had supported the UN-recognized government. That death was never denied by the Turkish authorities.
Since then, Baris Pehlivan has been in and out of Turkish prisons. A few days ago he declared that he was ready to return “for the fifth time” to prison. “I didn’t kill or rape anyone. I never sold drugs”, he said, among other things, in a post on Twitter. As long as there is no reversal of data, he said he was ready to report back to prison on August 15: “I welcome my imprisonment for the fifth time,” the Turkish journalist wrote.
International press freedom organizations are calling on the authorities to end the “systematic harassment” of Pehlivan by Turkish justice.
Erol Onteroglu, the representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Turkey, expressed to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) his frustration at the fact that Turkish journalists are constantly threatened with imprisonment for the views they express.
According to RSF’s 2023 press freedom ranking, Turkey is ranked 165th among 180 countries in the world.
Source: News Beast
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