Former DİHA reporter’s prison term has been upheld by an appellate court

Journalist Mehmet Sıddık Damar was arrested on 30 April to be sent to jail to serve a prison term, after an appellate court upheld an earlier conviction.

Damar, a former reporter for the shuttered Dicle News Agency (DİHA), was sent to the Istanbul Courthouse to be processed before being transferred to Metris Prison.

Damar was jailed pending trial in August 2017 on the charge of “spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization” on the basis of some of his reports and social media posts. He was convicted and sentenced to two years and six months on 6 October 2017 at the end of a trial at the Mardin 2^nd High Criminal Court, but released awaiting appeal.

The verdict was then appealed at the Gaziantep Regional Administrative Court, which acts as an appellate court.

179 journalists in prison

Damar’s imprisonment brought the number of journalists and media workers in jail to 179.

Earlier on 30 April, an Istanbul penal court issued a verdict in trial of 18 journalists and media workers whose files were separated from the Zaman trial, releasing five of the imprisoned defendants.