Turkish journalists association awards two Hürriyet reporters

ANKARA

The Progressive Journalists Association (ÇGD) has recognized two daily Hürriyet reporters, Fevzi Kızılkoyun and İdris Emen, for their work in 2015, while also extending a special “solidarity” award to imprisoned journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül.

Kızılkoyun was awarded for his reports on the Ankara bombings of Oct. 10, 2015 and the attacks against the Gül bookstore in the Central Anatolian province of Kırşehir.

The twin suicide bombings in the Turkish capital killed some 103 people and were later attributed to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Meanwhile, the Gül bookstore attacks came as part of mob attacks on local businesses owned by Turkish citizens of Kurdish descent in Kırşehir, after which 59 suspects were arrested on suspicion of racially motivated aggression. 

Emen, who reports for both Hürriyet and Radikal, received the “Rafet Genç News Story Award” for his report on the ISIL bomber being sought by Turkish police. The report revealed that the Adıyaman Public Prosecutor’s Office was searching for Orhan Gönder, the suspect arrested in connection to the twin bombing of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, as a “missing person with terror links” at the time of the attack.

The ÇGD also reserved a “Special Solidarity Award” for jailed Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dündar and Cumhuriyet Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül. Both Dündar and Gül were arrested on terrorism charges on Nov. 26, 2015, over a story on trucks owned by the National Intelligence Agency (MİT), Turkey’s state intelligence agency, which were stopped and searched in southern Turkey in early 2014 while allegedly carrying weapons to opposition forces fighting against the Syrian regime.

The indictment, which was completed within an investigation launched into the story published in daily Cumhuriyet on May. 29, 2015, carries a penalty of life in prison, penal servitude for life and 30 years in prison for Dündar and Gül each.