European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on Turkey Wednesday to let our journalists go following its arrests of French and German media personnel under a broad human rights crackdown.
Juncker also called on Turkey's leaders to stop insulting their EU counterparts as fascists and Nazis and said its disregard for the rule of law ruled out its membership in the bloc for the foreseeable future.
But Juncker saved his strongest words for the fate of German and French journalists, during his annual state of the union speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg.
Journalists belong in newsrooms not in prisons. They belong where freedom of expression reigns, Juncker said. I appeal to the powers that be in Turkey, let our journalists go! In recent months, Turkey has arrested two French journalists on terror charges for allegedly supporting Kurdish militants, but later released one of them.
Imprisoned in February, the correspondent of German daily Die Welt Deniz Yucel has been personally accused by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of working as a terror agent. The European journalists are among more than 50,000 people who have been arrested in Turkey under the state of emergency imposed after last year.
-AFP, Strasbourg
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