I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Ahmet Sik, a journalist that was released from jail just two months. His interview has received a lot of press from social media and networking sites. It has been tweeted and retweeted over one-hundred times including tweets from Turkish press and news outlets. Check out an article I wrote about the interview in the International Herald Tribune:
International Reporting
University of Illinois' International Reporting Journalism Class
I am surprised that this newly released journalist consented to an interview. He either has guts or he believes that his best sense of security is achieved through more media exposure (being a journalist this may well be his line of reasoning). Are there other journalists imprisoned in Turkey? If so, do you have any idea of how many there are? Is there a theme running through their imprisonment? Otherwise, are they exposing corrupt government officials or writing about a topic that the government may not want to have to take a stand on in public?
There are about 95 journalists currently imprisoned, twice the number that were imprisoned last year. Most of them are charged for being a part of a terrorist organization called Ergenekon, which is against the government. Journalists critical of the Gulen movement are sometimes jailed as well.
Good point. Yes sometimes people are jailed and the wider world never hears about it. In Sik’s case, he has been able to use media coverage to shine a light on his case and those of others, and this has helped pressure the authorities into treating him a bit more fairly. It is thought that his detention on flimsy charges was becoming an embarrassment to the current government, so he was released pending trial.