KurdistanObserver.com

RWB: Call For Release Of Two Women Journalists with pro-Kurdish news agency in Turkey 
Reporters Without Borders

May 10, 2006

Reporters Without Borders today called for the provisional release of two women reporters with the pro-Kurdish news agency DIHA pending the outcome of their trial, which began yesterday. Evrim Dengiz and Nesrin Yazar face life imprisonment on charges of “jeopardising the unity of the state and territorial integrity.”

“They have not committed any violent crime and there are no grounds for their being kept in preventive custody,” the press freedom organisations said. “We also call on the prosecutor to reconsider the extremely severe sentences he has requested.”

Arrested by anti-terrorist police on 15 February, Dengiz and Yazar were transferred two weeks ago to a prison in the southern city of Adana. The court rejected their request to be released.

Their lawyer, Bedri Kuran, who has had no access to their files because the case has been classified as secret on security grounds, said the police broke the law by searching his clients’ rental car without an order from a judge or a senior police officer. He also complained about the lack of a forensic report on the two petrol bombs which police claim they found in the car.

The next hearing in their trial is scheduled for 4 July.