A Turkish court sentenced Albayrak, Ayla (Ayla Albayrak), the correspondent of newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), to two years and one month in prison for an article about the Kurds. Authorities found the woman guilty of “promoting terrorism and supporting the banned Turkey Kurdistan workers’ party (PKK)”. About it reports the WSJ.
In women of Turkish and Finnish citizenship. Currently, Albayrak is located in new York and plans to appeal the court’s decision.
Chief editor Gerard Baker called the charges unfounded and inappropriate. According to him, the only purpose of this article is to show what is happening in Turkey objectively.
The article “Street fighting intensified in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast of Turkey” was published on the website of the WSJ in August 2015. In the text the journalist told about the clashes the Turkish security forces with representatives of the PKK on the streets of the city of Silopi in the Southeast of the country. The article was a video and interview with local residents, representatives of local authorities and youth unit of the PKK.
Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organization. Since 1984, the fighters of the PKK, waging an armed struggle for political rights of Kurds in Turkey and the establishment of Kurdish autonomy in its composition. The truce between the Turkish government and the Kurds was terminated in July of 2015. The reason for the resumption of the active phase of the confrontation was a terrorist attack in the town of Suruç, when 32 people were killed, mostly Kurds.