New York, August 3, 2017–Turkish authorities should immediately release French freelance journalist Loup Bureau, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A court in Turkey’s southeastern Şırnak province yesterday ordered the journalist jailed pending trial on terrorism charges, according to press reports.
“We call on Turkish authorities to release French journalist Loup Bureau without delay and to stop their relentless crackdown on the press, both foreign and domestic,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “Bogus terrorism charges have become the favored method of silencing independent journalism in Turkey.”
Security forces detained Bureau, who has worked in the past with the French television channel TV5, on July 26 days ago as he crossed the border from Iraq, according to the pro-government daily Sabah. He is charged with “aiding and abetting a [terrorist] organization” based on photographs he had taken of members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which the Turkish government considers a terrorist group and a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to a Radio France Internationale.