95 Jailed Journalists Accredited for EU-Turkey Summit in Bulgaria

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The Association of European Journalists - Bulgaria (AEJ-Bulgaria) has prepared symbolic accreditation badges for the EU-Turkey Leader’s Meeting in Varna, Bulgaria, set for March 26 for 95 journalists jailed in Turkey.

In its press release the AEJ-Bulgaria stated that President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet the Presidents of the Council and the Commission Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker and the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, and said, “Unfortunately, these 95 Turkish colleagues will not be able to attend the meeting and to do their job to ask questions and to hold the politicians accountable for their commitments, because they have been put behind bars”.

The release went on as follows:

“No one is free until we are all free”

“Our message to politicians is clear: Journalists are not terrorists and cannot be treated as such for their work. Even if you put critical journalists in jail, you will not stop hearing them - others will raise their voices. We will speak with their voice.

“Highlighting this is the purpose of our unusual action as 95 accreditation cards arranged on a table look a lot. But can you imagine that behind each one badge stands a person, and behind them is their family, their friends, their readers, their viewers, their listeners? In the end, we all stand behind this person, as the mission of a true journalist is to serve the whole society. When so many journalists are deprived of their liberty, we should remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous quote: "No one is free until we are all free”.

“We urge Turkey to release immediately the journalists who have been detained for their work. The European Union must not remain silent on this issue and has to put the fate of the detained journalists as a condition for any rapprochement with Ankara”. (EA/TK)