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Opposition politicians in Turkey held copies of Cumhuriyet, the country’s oldest secularist daily newspaper, in October after its offices were raided. At least a dozen of the newspaper’s journalists were detained on accusations of producing propaganda.<\/p>
Ozan Kose\/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images<\/p>
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At least 259 journalists have been jailed around the world this year, a press advocacy group reported on Monday, the most since it began a detailed annual census of imprisonments in 1990.<\/p>
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The group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, attributed the increase largely to a surge of imprisonments in Turkey after the failed military coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July.<\/p>
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At least 81 journalists — almost a third of the total — were incarcerated by the Turkish authorities in relation to their work, the group said in announcing the 2016 figures, “the highest number in any one country at any time.”<\/p>
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Among those imprisoned were Mehmet Baransu, a former columnist and correspondent for the daily newspaper Taraf, who was accused of obtaining secret documents, insulting the president and membership in a terrorist organization. He is facing a maximum sentence of 75 years.<\/p>
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The committee also cited an Oct. 31 raid on the offices of Cumhuriyet, Turkey’s oldest secularist daily newspaper, where at least a dozen journalists were detained on accusations of producing propaganda for outlawed Kurdish separatists and a banned organization run by Fethullah Gulen, a cleric and political rival of Mr. Erdogan’s.<\/p>
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Mr. Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, has been accused by Turkish investigators of fomenting the attempted coup against Mr. Erdogan, a charge that Mr. Gulen has denied. The Turkish government has said it wants the United States to extradite him.<\/p>
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The 259 total for 2016 shattered the previous global record of 232 journalists imprisoned in 2012. Last year, 199 journalists were jailed, the group said.<\/p>
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After Turkey, the biggest jailers of journalists were China, where at least 38 had been incarcerated as of Dec. 1; Egypt, with 25; Eritrea, with 17; and Ethiopia, with 16.<\/p>
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For the first time since 2008, Iran was not among the top five jailers, the committee said, counting eight journalists in Iranian prisons compared with 19 a year earlier.<\/p>
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The group attributed the decline partly to the release of many of those who had been sentenced after a 2009 crackdown following a disputed presidential election.<\/p>
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Nonetheless, the Iranian authorities are still imprisoning journalists for their work. The group cited the example of Keyvan Karimi, a filmmaker who was sentenced in 2015 to six years in prison and 223 lashes for a documentary about political graffiti.<\/p>
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