TURKISH authorities have objected to the acquittal of Mesopotamia News journalist Seda Taskin, claiming that international support for her case has given strength to a terrorist organisation.

According to the Mesopotamia Agency (MA), prosecutors claimed “her news article about the [Turkish] prisons is … influencing national and international public opinion and has provided mobility to the organisation” [the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)].

Ms Taskin had been sentenced to seven years, six months in prison on trumped up terrorism charges, which included claims that her own name Seda was, in fact, a terrorist codeword.

Her journalism was also used as evidence against her, including an interview with the family of a jailed 87-year-old woman, the sharing of a Facebook post and a retweet.

She spent more than a year behind bars before being released in January pending an appeal hearing held on May 15 at Erzurum Regional Courthouse in Turkey’s largely Kurdish south-east.

The Kurdish journalist appeared from Ankara via a video link and walked free after giving a powerful one-line defence: “Journalism cannot be judged.”

The judge sentenced her to one  year, 11 months and 10 days for “spreading terrorist propaganda” though she was cleared of “aiding and abetting the organisation without being a member of it.”

Ms Taskin was not taken back to prison but was told that she must not be charged with any terrorist offences for a five-year period. A ban from travelling abroad remained in place.

However the decision of the Erzurum Regional Court of Justice was challenged by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on May 30 on the grounds that it was “against the law and non-procedural.”

MA explained that the prosecutor’s objections were based on Ms Taskin’s “search for stories involving prisoners” who were jailed on terrorism charges for being alleged members of the PKK, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) or the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).

She wrote about the conditions in prison and the impact on their families. 

Prosecutors also hit out at Ms Taskin’s previous work for the DIHA and Dihaber news agencies which were among the hundreds of media organisations closed down by the Turkish authorities under the state of emergency implemented after the failed coup attempt of 2016.

MA reported that prosecutors claimed Ms Taskin’s news articles “have been motivating the members of the organisation [the PKK] ... facilitating the communication and information transfer within the organisation, organising the masses, especially by creating national and international public opinion” and giving them strength. 
 
The prosecutor’s appeal will be heard by a judge. The date was not known at the time the Star went to press.