Seventeen journalists and newspaper executives are on trial in Turkey, accused of supporting a terrorist group.
The well-known Turkish reporters, executives and lawyers standing trial in Istanbul are staff at the country’s last prominent opposition newspaper, Cumhuriyet.
Turkish citizens and members of the media have felt the wrath of the government’s crackdown against members of the press critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. That pressure intensified following a failed coup attempt in July 2016 to end Erdogan’s more than decade-long tenure.
Prosecutors have asked the Turkish courts to punish the newspaper staff with up to 43 years in jail for targeting the president, but the members of the media have denied the allegations against them, according to Reuters.
“I am not here because I knowingly and willingly helped a terrorist organization, but because I am an independent, questioning and critical journalist,” one of the defendants, columnist Kadri Gursel, reportedly told the court.
[MORE: Global Press Freedoms Weakening, Group Warns]
Arrested journalists are often held on terrorism-related charges, and Erdogan’s critics have branded the arrests as a larger attack on press freedoms.
Turkey is the global leader in journalist incarceration, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization that tracks press freedom violations and promotes press freedom worldwide.
The group’s 2016 prison census — the most recently available — found that 32 states are jailing about 259 journalists worldwide. Turkey jailed the majority of that number by far, with at least 81 journalists incarcerated in the country last year, according to the organization.
Press accounts, however, put the 2017 figure at a far higher count. And the Stockholm Center for Freedom, a Sweden-based advocacy group, reports that as of July 2017, Turkish officials had arrested some 249 journalists and convicted 24 more. Turkish authorities have warrants out for another 109 journalists, according to the group.
Here are the five countries that jail the most journalists around the world, according to a 2016 data analysis from the Committee to Protect Journalists:
| Country |
Jailed Journalists Rank |
Number of Journalists Jailed | Overall Best Countries Rank |
| Turkey | 1 | 81 | 36 |
| China | 2 | 38 | 20 |
| Egypt | 3 | 25 | 45 |
| Eritrea | 4 | 17 | Not Ranked |
| Ethiopia | 5 | 16 | Not Ranked |
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Turkey, the Country Jailing the Most Journalists, Puts More News Media on Trial originally appeared on usnews.com
