Turkish court hears appeal of WSJ reporter

Ayla Albayrak

A Turkish court heart an appeal in the case of Wall Street Journal reporter Ayla Albayrak, who was sentenced to 25 months in prison last year for an article she wrote about violence in the country.

Thomas Grove of The Journal wrote, “The hearing at the regional court in Gaziantep is the first since Ms. Albayrak was sentenced to 25 months in prison in October. Ms. Albayrak, who was not required to be present at the hearing, is currently not in Turkey.

“‘I will never give up pursuing the legal process until the very end, as I have not done anything illegal,” Ms. Albayrak said before the hearing. “Quite the opposite. I’m proud of the price of reporting that prompted this.”

“The Wall Street Journal has praised Ms. Albayrak’s work and offered a full-throated defense of the article it published, maintaining that it stood up to the newspaper’s most rigorous newspaper standards.

“It remains intolerable that this conviction looms over a professional and respected journalist who provided independent, objective reporting on Turkey. We remain undeterred in our support for Ayla and for press freedom as we look to the appellate court to overturn this injustice,” said Matt Murray, editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.