The following article by Matt Gertz was posted on the Media Matters website October 11, 2017:
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that one of its journalists, Ayla Albayrak, had been convicted of “engaging in terrorist propaganda” by a Turkish court over Albayrak’s reporting in the Journal on a Kurdish separatist party banned in that nation. The move was condemned by the Journal’s editor-in-chief, Gerard Baker, and press freedom advocates.
Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian government has closed down more than 150 media outlets in recent years and imprisoned at least 200 journalists, according to the Stockholm Center for Freedom. But the move to prosecute and imprison a reporter for a Western media outlet for terrorism is extremely unusual. When Turkey arrests such reporters, the country can usually expect vigorous protests from the outlet’s home government. Continue reading “Trump just threatened to shut down news outlets critical of him. That’s what’s happened in Turkey.”