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Turkish journalists charged with helping
Kurd rebels
3.1.2006
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ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish state prosecutors on
Monday charged nine people, including a journalist
who works for Reuters news agency, with spreading
propaganda on behalf of Kurdish separatists.
If found guilty the nine, who include other
journalists and human rights activists, face up to
three years in jail.
Turkish national Ferit Demir, a stringer for Reuters
based in the eastern town of Tunceli, was detained
last August when he observed the handover of a
soldier abducted by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
rebels to representatives of a human rights group.
He and the other men were then freed pending
investigations.
Journalists have often fallen foul of Turkish
authorities over coverage of a conflict in the
southeast that has cost some 30,000 lives. A
government pursuing European Union entry has eased
curbs on the media and on Kurdish language and
culture, but the judiciary remains a conservative
force.
In its indictment, the Tunceli prosecutor's office
accused the nine of using the kidnapped soldier to
promote the cause of the PKK, which has waged an
armed struggle against Turkish security forces in
the impoverished southeast since 1984.
Demir denied the accusations.
"It is absolutely out of the question that I
conducted PKK propaganda. I was only doing my job as
a journalist," he said.
The prosecutors set March 3 as the date for the
first hearing in the trial.
PKK rebels held the soldier captive for nearly four
weeks in a remote region of the southeast before
releasing him.
Turkey blames the PKK, classified by the United
States as a terrorist organisation, for the deaths
and economic damage inflicted on the region over two
decades. Violence eased after the 1999 capture of
rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan but has grown again
since PKK ended a five-year unilateral cease-fire in
2004.
Reuters
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