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Index on Censorship urges Turkish authorities to immediately release French journalist Loup Bureau and drop all charges against him.
Freelance journalist Loup Bureau was arrested in Şırnak on charges of terrorism-related activities.
“Turkish authorities have been using terrorism charges to restrict access to information and silence journalists,” Index on Censorship’s head of advocacy Melody Patry said. “By arresting journalists simply for doing their job, Turkey violates the fundamental right to seek, receive and impart information. The charges against Loup Bureau are groundless and we call for his immediate and unconditional release.”
Euronews reported that the journalist was first detained on 26 July at Habur, where he was crossing into Turkey from Iraq.
After five days in police custody, he was charged and taken to a prison in the town of Şırnak on 1 August.
Turkey is the world’s top jailer of journalists, with over 100 currently in prison. The crackdown on media freedom intensified in the aftermath of the coup attempt last July 2016 and under the state of emergency that followed.
The arrest of Bureau takes place just two months after another French journalist, Mathieu Depardon, was deported from Turkey one month after his arrest in Gaziantep. The European Federation of Journalists reports that Deniz Yücel, Turkish correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt is still behind bars as of February and French national Olivier Bertrand was deported in November 2016 while he was working on a report focused on the post-coup situation in Turkey.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Media freedom is under threat worldwide. Journalists are threatened, jailed and even killed simply for doing their job.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fpress-regulation%2F|||”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship monitors media freedom in Turkey and 41 other European area nations.
As of 7/8/2017 there were 500 verified violations of press freedom associated with Turkey in the Mapping Media Freedom database.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship campaigns against laws that stifle journalists’ work. We also publish an award-winning magazine featuring work by and about censored journalists. Support our work today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502110018823-3f3d8c6f-bee4-8″ taxonomies=”55″][/vc_column][/vc_row]