Türkiye: Swedish Journalist Sentenced to Suspended Prison Sentence Still Not Out of the Woods

In Sweden, all media outlets were focused on Ankara on Wednesday, April 30. Arrested on March 27 upon his arrival in Istanbul, Swedish journalist Joakim Medin was being tried there for insulting Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan. After a speedy trial, during which he appeared via videoconference, the verdict was delivered in the afternoon: the reporter for the left-wing daily Dagens ETC , who had been facing two years in prison, was given a suspended sentence of eleven months and twenty days. While his family and colleagues expressed their relief, he is far from out of the woods: Joakim Medin still faces a second trial for "membership in an armed terrorist organization" and "dissemination of terrorist propaganda." A crime for which he faces up to nine years in prison.

On Wednesday, many Swedish journalists traveled to follow the trial on the ground. They were accompanied by a large delegation from Stockholm, including the presidents of the two press publishers' associations, the secretary-general of the Swedish Union of Journalists, Green Party MP Ulrika Westerlund, and former Left Party leader Jonas Sjöstedt. Now an MEP, he denounced "a political trial" and assured that he would work to ensure that the European Parliament mobilized in favor of Joakim Medin's release.

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