Members of the European Parliament have begun a campaign of support for imprisoned Turkish journalists at the proposal of leading journalism organization,the Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Green MEPs launched the campaign on Wednesday by writing to Musa Kart, a cartoonist who has been held without trial for more than five months and is facing up to 29 years in prison.
Three of the European Parliament’s political groups have so far joined RSF’s proposal to send letters to journalists imprisoned in Turkey.
The letter that members of the Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) sent to Kart on Wednesday was signed by the group’s co-presidents, and Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts,and by French MEP Eva Joly on behalf of all the other MEPs in the group.
Members of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE-NGL) will send letters in the coming weeks. Other groups contacted by RSF are also expected to follow suit.
In their letter, the Green MEPs say: “We are writing this letter to guarantee you of our solidarity, or to remind you that you are not alone,to order you that your sarcastic take on the news is cruelly missing as we witness Turkey’s transformation into an authoritarian regime”
The letter ends: “Stay strong, Musa! Even thousands of kilometers absent, or even still unknown to you,we are at your side, committed to freedom, and a free press and a democratic Turkey.
Turkey is now the world’s biggest prison for journalists,with around 100 currently detained. Most of them were arrested under the state of emergency that was declared after an abortive coup attempt in July 2016 and most of them have not yet been tried.
Source: tert.am