Report says 76 journalists in Turkey jails

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government has waged one of the world's biggest crackdowns on press freedom in recent years, jailing more journalists than Iran, China or Eritrea, a leading media watchdog said on October 22.

The damning report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) added to a chorus of criticism from the European Union and rights groups of the EU-candidate country's mass detention of reporters, most of whom are kept in detention while their cases are dealt with.

Around two-thirds were journalists writing about the largely Kurdish southeast, where the government is fighting a PKK violence.

«Turkey's press freedom situation has reached a crisis point,» the watchdog said in a 50-page report.

Hundreds of politicians, academics and journalists are in jail on charges of plotting against the government, while more than 300 army officers were convicted last month in coup trial, and handed long jail terms.

Erdogan's government says most of the detainees are being held for serious crimes, such as membership of an armed terrorist organisation, that have nothing to do with journalism.

Adapted from Worldbulletin