The Ankara 26th High Criminal Court on Monday handed down a seven year, six month sentence to journalist Kazım Canlan after he was convicted of involvement in terrorist activities, the tr724 news website reported.
Canlan worked for the Cihan news agency, which was closed by government decree after a coup attempt in 2016, and the pro-government Yeni Şafak newspaper in Ankara.
He attended the last session of the trial through the SEGBİS video-conference system from Mersin, where he has been held in pretrial detention.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday. If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 253 journalists and media workers were in jail as of May 11, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 192 were under arrest pending trial while only 61 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 142 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016. (SCF with turkishminute.com)
