Wall Street Journal Veteran Reporter Wrongly Convicted of Criminal Terrorism Charges in Turkey

NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2017 -- Veteran Wall Street Journal staff reporter Ayla Albayrak, who has consistently demonstrated her commitment to upholding the highest professional standards, was wrongly convicted today of terrorism charges in Turkey.

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The court convicted Ms. Albayrak of violating Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law and sentenced her to two years and one month in prison in connection with a Wall Street Journal article published in 2015. Work on an appeal has already begun.

“This was an unfounded criminal charge and wildly inappropriate conviction that wrongly singled out a balanced Wall Street Journal report,” said Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Gerard Baker. “The sole purpose of the article was to provide objective and independent reporting on events in Turkey, and it succeeded.”

William Lewis, Dow Jones’s Chief Executive Officer and Publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said: “This ruling against a professional and respected journalist is an affront to all who are committed to furthering a free and robust press. We call on those who share this commitment to make their voices heard.

“The notion that our reporter’s commendable and insightful work led to a criminal prosecution that has resulted in this wrongful conviction is intolerable,” Mr. Lewis said. “We have stood by Ms. Albayrak’s side for nearly two years as we have robustly pursued all available options to defend this baseless prosecution, and we will continue to stand with her as we seek to overturn this conviction.”

Turkish prosecutors charged Ms. Albayrak, a dual citizen of Turkey and Finland who has been a staff reporter for the Journal since 2010, in connection with her August 2015 Journal news article “Urban Warfare Escalates in Turkey’s Kurdish-Majority Southeast.”

This unwarranted action put a professional journalist on trial simply for doing her job, and in effect, falsely suggests that the highly respected Wall Street Journal is guilty of promoting terrorist propaganda by publishing a straightforward news report.

The verdict comes as Turkey, under a state of emergency since the failed July 2016 coup attempt, has become the world’s largest jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Given the current climate in Turkey, this appalling decision shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me, but it did,” Ms. Albayrak said. “The decision shows the extent to which the authorities did not want the operations that were going on in Turkey’s southeast to be reported on. It also shows yet again, that the international media is not immune to the ongoing press crackdown in Turkey.”

The action against Ms. Albayrak began after the publication of the article on August 19, 2015. The article and an accompanying video were balanced and fair news accounts that accurately reflected the state of a conflict in Silopi, Turkey, between the Turkish government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

A number of websites, unaffiliated with the Journal or Ms. Albayrak, published articles in Turkish that selectively quoted and distorted the Journal’s reporting. Turkish officials identified 24 such articles and asked the country’s Telecommunication Directorate to have them blocked. Prosecutors, without any basis, held Ms. Albayrak responsible for what those websites published and unfairly accused her of engaging in terrorist propaganda.

“The Wall Street Journal is an independent news organization with a lengthy and distinguished history of fair and accurate reporting around the world. Ayla Albayrak embodies that rich tradition, spending years as an intrepid journalist producing insightful, fair and impartial coverage from Turkey,” Mr. Baker said. “We will work tirelessly to overturn this preposterous conviction.”

Contact:
Colleen Schwartz
Senior Vice President, Communications
[email protected]