Posts Tagged ‘Istanbul’
September 11th, 2012
The biggest
media trial in Turkey’s history has begun, 44 journalists appeared in an Istanbul court on Monday (10 September). Of those, 36 have been in
pre-trial detention since December. The reporters face a variety of terrorism charges including accusations they supported the outlawed Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), wrote articles about prison abuse, war casualties, and sexual harassment. Human rights groups say the trial is an attempt by the government to
intimidate the press and punish pro-Kurdish activists.
More than 100 journalists are currently in jail in Turkey.
December 8th, 2011
An
Azerbaijani human rights activist was
detained for more than 24 hours at Istanbul airport on Tuesday evening. Intigam Aliyev was returning to Baku from the
Civil Society Parallel Event, organized by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vilnius, when he was accused of insulting an airport officer, and the return of his passport was refused. Aliyev reported being beaten by police whilst he was detained. He arrived in Baku in the early hours of this morning.
June 30th, 2011
Istanbul police have
arrested 50 contributors to
Turkey’s largest user-generated dictionary. The “Sour Dictionary” (
Eksi Sozluk) site offers satirical definitions of a number of common words and has been running for around 12 years. The anonymous authors, who were identified through their IP addresses, have been charged with “insulting religion” following a complaint over a discussion about the prophet Muhammed. The site’s administrators have faced criticism for agreeing to hand over authors’ IP addresses to the police.
July 1st, 2009
A UK artist, Michael Dickinson who was cleared in September of mocking Turkey’s prime minister by portraying him as a dog in a piece of artwork has fled the country after hearing his acquittal has been overturned. Read more
here
