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Watchdog

Sunday 27 November 2016

BBC, VOA Reporters Detained In Southeast Turkey
VOA freelance reporter Khajijan Farqin was detained in Diyarbakir on November 26.
VOA freelance reporter Khajijan Farqin was detained in Diyarbakir on November 26.

Turkish authorities during the weekend detained two reporters working for foreign news organizations in southeast Turkey -- the latest journalists taken into custody as part of a government crackdown following a failed military coup in July.

Voice of America (VOA), a U.S.-government-funded media outlet, reports that its freelance journalist Khajijan Farqin was detained on November 26 in Diyarbakir.

No reason was given for Farqin's detention.

Meanwhile, BBC Turkish reports that its correspondent Hatice Kamer also was detained on November 26 in the town of Sirvan while reporting on the recent collapse of a copper mine that killed at least 11 workers.

The BBC reported that Kamer was released on November 27.

Kamer told German broadcaster WDR by phone after being freed that she was told she would face charges of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, through her reporting.

Kamer said there was no evidence to support the allegations.

Turkey has tightened restrictions on journalists in recent months, closing more than 170 news organizations and putting more than 120 journalists behind bars.

Many of the arrests and closures have involved reporters and news organizations based in the mostly-Kurdish southeast.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, VOA, and the BBC

Russia Releases Son Of Crimean Tatar Leader Dzhemilev
Khaiser Dzhemilev was granted early release from a three-and-a-half year sentence on manslaughter and weapons possession charges (file photo). 
Khaiser Dzhemilev was granted early release from a three-and-a-half year sentence on manslaughter and weapons possession charges (file photo). 

Khaiser Dzhemilev, the son of Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, was released from a penal colony in Astrakhan in southern Russia on November 25.

Dzhemilev's lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, said in a Facebook post on November 26 that Dzhemilev has arrived in Ukraine.

Dzhemilev was granted early release from a three-and-a-half year sentence on manslaughter and weapons possession charges.

Dzhemilev was initially convicted by a Ukrainian court in 2013 of accidentally shooting one of the family's bodyguards, Fevzi Edimov.

After Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the Moscow-backed authorities took over the case, moved him to mainland Russia and tried him again on the same charges.

Mustafa Dzhemilev, who strongly protested the annexation of Crimea and is currently living in Kyiv, said that Russia was using his son to blackmail him into stopping his campaign against the annexation.

Dzhemilev, 72, has been banned from Crimea since Russia invaded and annexed the peninsula in early 2014.

He had been the chairman of the Crimean Tatars' Mejlis, or council, until it was banned by pro-Moscow representatives in Crimea.

He is a member of the Ukrainian parliament and a well-known Soviet-era human rights activist.

With reporting by the Financial Times and TASS

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"Watchdog" is a blog with a singular mission -- to monitor the latest developments concerning human rights, civil society, and press freedom. We'll pay particular attention to reports concerning countries in RFE/RL's broadcast region.

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