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Turkish reporter Arzu Yildiz on Wednesday was sentenced to 20 months in jail and stripped of her parental rights by a Turkish court. She was sued by the Turkish government for uploading a video of the trial of four prosecutors who in 2014 ordered Turkish trucks to be searched on their way to Syria.
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In 2014, a group of Turkish intelligence trucks were searched, revealing weapons that were allegedly intended for Syrian anti-government forces.
The prosecutors who ordered the search of the trucks were put on trial in a closed court and footage of the prosecutors defending themselves was published by Yildiz and subsequently she was then charged for violating the confidentiality of the case.
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Yildiz’s lawyer, Alpdemir Tanriverdi, said to Reuters that the stripping of Yildiz parenting rights at the request of the state “was an act of revenge … There are many cases in which the court does not execute this article of the penal code. They didn't have to do it."
Can Dundar, editor-in-chief and Erdem Gu, Ankara bureau chief of the Cumhuriyet Daily, were also sentenced this month in relation to the truck searching incident. The sentences heightened the concern over media freedom, where the Turkish government has been criticized for some of their actions against the media.
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Several Turkish opposition newspapers have been shut down over the past six months and broadcasters have been taken off air. Prosecutors have meanwhile opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting Tayyip Erdogan since he became president in 2014, including journalists, cartoonists and teenagers.
The truck searching incident was highly sensitive for Erdogan, who said the searching of the trucks and some of the media coverage of the incident was part of a plot by his political enemies to undermine him and embarrass Turkey.
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