A Kurdish journalist who has been the subject of frequent judicial harassment since he photographed the killing of a Kurdish university student by a police officer in 2017 has been released from pretrial detention, the Mezopotamya news agency reported on Tuesday.
Journalist Abdurrahman Gök, an editor at the Mezopotamya news agency who is facing charges of membership in a terrorist organization and disseminating terrorist propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was released from pretrial detention by the Diyarbakır 5th Criminal Court at the second hearing of his trial on Tuesday.
He had been behind bars since April 25.
The PKK, which has been waging a bloody campaign in Turkey’s southeast since 1984, is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
Gök said in his defense that the real motivation behind the trial was to punish him for taking photos of Kurdish youth Kemal Kurkut as he was confronted and killed by a police officer during Nevruz celebrations in Diyarbakır in 2017.
Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) co-chairperson and lawyer Veysel Ok also said that Gök is being tried because he “disturbs the government.”
“The unfinished news and recordings in the journalist’s possession cannot be considered a crime. When we look at the case file, we know that the real reason behind it are the photographs of Kemal Kurkut,” Ok added.
Gök faced several investigations, stood trial and was given a one-and-a-half-year sentence in June 2022 on conviction of “disseminating terrorist propaganda” due to the photos, which he refused to give to the police following the murder.
Gök, who shot photos of Kurkut’s confrontation with and killing by police minute by minute, submitted the photos to the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. The photos, which total 28 in number, clearly rule out the possibility of Kurkut being a suicide bomber. Gök also testified to the prosecutors as a witness.
Police found poetry books and clothes in Kurkut’s backpack after he was shot on suspicion that he was a suicide bomber.
The court adjourned his current trial until March 12.
Gök was among four journalists who were detained along with more than 100 activists, lawyers and politicians in a mass operation targeting Kurds across Turkey in late April shortly before the country held presidential and parliamentary elections. The other three journalists were also arrested.
The operations were seen as an attempt by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to silence the Kurdish media before the critical elections, which resulted in the success of the AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
