Turkey: Kurdish journalist's sentence confirmed

A Turkish appeal court upheld a decision against a Kurdish journalist, who had been sentenced to over one and a half year in prison for taking and posting images of Kurdish fighters who fought against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria's Kurdish town of Kobani in 2014.

Journalist Abdurrahman Gok had earlier been found guilty by a Diyarbakir court on 30 June of "spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization."

He had told Mezoptamya News Agency that the prosecution accuse him over an image showing civilians who fought in the defense of Kobani, and another image that shows a middle-aged man with children in Kobani, holding a handful of soil and saying, "This is Kobani, and it's sacred soil for us. We won't abandon it."

Both images were taken while the town was under the siege and continuous attacks of ISIS, Gok had noted.

Gok had also been accused for sharing on social media an article titled "Wound" by artist Yesim Sahin; an article on Kemal Kurkut who was killed by the police in Diyarbakır on 21 March 2017, during Newroz celebrations.

Kurkut was shot near a checkpoint, and a statement by the governors's office followed, claiming that the police had "intervened" upon suspicion that the man could be a "suicide bomber." It was claimed that Kurkut ran towards the celebration area knife in hand, crying, "I’ve got a bomb in my bag, I’m going to kill you all."

However, on the following day, photographs taken by Gok emerged, which showed clearly that the governor’s claims were unfounded, that not only was the young man carrying no more than a bottle of water in his hands, but also he was fully naked on top and there was apparently nothing fastened to his body.