Turkish journalists, banned at home, set up shop in Germany
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Facing harassment, enforced shutdowns and the threat of jail at home, Turkey's journalists in exile are using Germany as a base to report on political turmoil in their country ahead of Sunday's referendum.
"We are here because there is no freedom of the press, and no freedom of expression in Turkey anymore," said Can Dundar, the former editor-in-chief of the respected Cumhuriyet newspaper.
Dundar was convicted of revealing state secrets after he published a report saying that Turkey's intelligence agency was involved in sending weapons to Syrian rebels. He was jailed for three months and shot at in front of a court house as he was briefing reporters. Dundar was sentenced to prison but left for Germany after he was freed on appeal without travel restrictions.
Now he's running the bilingual news website Ozguruz in Berlin, with the help of the German nonprofit news organization Correctiv . "Ozguruz" means "We are free" in Turkish.
"There are of course friends and colleagues still struggling in Turkey, but it is a really dangerous task," Dundar told The Associated Press. "I spent three months in jail and I was shot in front court house, and my only fault was writing the news. So because of that we decided to do this from outside."
