Perhaps by now this is a familiar story: Journalists detained in Turkey.
The arrests of Vice journalists Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury in the country last year shot the phenomenon to international attention, but for local journalists, it happens quite a bit—Mohammed Rasool, the Iraqi interpretor acompanying Hanrahan and Pendlebury, was only just released earlier in January, months after his colleagues' September release.
This week, Turkish journalists Can Dundar and Erdem Gul have become the latest examples. The journalists, both of whom work Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper, are looking at the possibility of life in prison after a report accusing the Turkish government of arming militant elements in Syria. The charge is espionage.
The two journalists are being accused of working with a US-based cleric to "discredit the government," according to the BBC.
But by the looks of it (as with most of these cases in Turkey), they were just reporting.
The story included video footage of police finding a car stocked with weapons, believed to be linked to Turkish intelligence. Though authorities said the truck was at the border to cross into Syria to deliver aid to Turkmen in the war-torn country.
This is not the first time Turkey's track record with press freedom has been highlighted. In December, press watchdog Reporters Without Borders pegged the country as having "Noticeable Problems," citing several recent examples of impediments, including the case involving Vice's Iraqi translator, Rasool.
Upon Cumhuriyet's report last May, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired back at the Turkish paper with a televised warning that the journalists "would pay a heavy price," for releasing the footage. He then filed a lawsuit against the journalists.
So, while it may be a new year, the intensifying case involving Cumhuriyet is a grim reminder that press rights in Turkey don't appear to be improving.
