Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Bia Media Monitoring Report: "104 Journalists and 30 Distributors are in Prison"

The independent news server Bianet just released its 2011 Bia Media Monitoring Report. According to the report 2011 was the year of mass arrests of journalists. While in 2010, 30 journalists were imprisoned, the number increased to 104 journalists and 30 distributors/media workers until the end of 2011. "The journalists are in prison under allegations of affiliations with illegal organizations in the scope of the Anti-Terror Law and the Turkish Criminal Law. 94 out of these 134 press workers are from Kurdish media outlets. 27 out of 104 jailed journalists are convicted; the trials of 34 of them are still pending. On 31 December 2011, 43 detained journalists were still waiting for their indictments to be disclosed. Four journalists received life sentences. 23 journalists were sentenced to imprisonment of 167 years and ten months in total"

http://bianet.org/english/freedom-of-expression/135831-104-journalists-and-30-distributors-in-prison