Sawt Falasteen - Swedish journalist's trial opens in Turkey

Joakim Medin, 40, who works for Swedish newspaper Dagens ETC, was detained on March 27 and sent to prison the next day.

Medin will appear before a judge in the capital Ankara via video link from Istanbul's Silivri prison. If convicted, he faces up to three years in jail for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The hearing starts at 3:00 pm (1200 GMT).

Prosecutors accuse Medin of participating in a January 2023 protest in Stockholm by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) during which a puppet representing Erdogan was strung up.

Dagens ETC editor-in-chief Andreas Gustavsson told AFP the reporter was "in a pretty good condition" and "prepared for this trial".

"He's looking forward to telling the judge that journalistic work shouldn't be a crime, not even in Turkey," he said.

Many people, from teenagers to journalists and even a former Miss Turkey, have been charged with insulting the head of state.

"The offence of 'insulting the president' has played a role in the harassment of many local and foreign journalists and clearly disregards the precedents set out by the European Court of Human Rights," Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders told AFP.

"It is gravely disproportionate and arbitrary that a foreign journalist is accused of doing something in his own country that he says he didn't participate in but only reported on," he said.

Reporters Without Borders places Turkey 158th of 180 countries in its press freedom index.

-'This is my job'-

Gustavsson said the conditions where Medin is being held were decent, and that he'd been able to exercise, "to meet his lawyers, to meet the Swedish consulate, and once a week he's been able to have a short phone call with his wife".

He is also facing a second charge, for which he will be tried separately, of belonging to a terror organisation -- a crime punishable by up to nine years in prison.

Medin has denied the charges, according to MLSA, the Turkish rights group whose lawyers are defending him.

In a statement to prosecutors ahead of Wednesday's trial, Medin denied joining the Stockholm protest, saying he was only reporting on it.

"I am a journalist, this is my job," he said.

"Joakim Medin was arrested and put on trial in Turkey on charges of 'insulting the president' because he reported on an event he did not participate in and was simply doing journalism," MLSA co-director Baris Altintas told AFP.

The other charge of "membership in a terror group" was based on his social media posts, news stories and books written "solely as a result of his journalistic activities", she said.

No date has been set for the second trial.

"It's shameful someone who is engaged in journalism should be punished in this way but it's not surprising when you consider the state of freedom of expression in Turkey," she added.

Turkey was gripped by widespread street protests after the March 19 arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu -- widely seen as the only politician capable of defeating Erdogan at the ballot box.

In response, police arrested nearly 2,000 people, including journalists, among them BBC correspondent Mark Lowen who was deported for being "a threat to public order".

AFP photographer Yasin Akgul was also arrested, charged with attending an illegal protest then released, although he and seven other journalists will be tried this year.

Relations between Turkey and Sweden soured when Ankara refused to ratify Stockholm's bid to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, with Erdogan demanding a Swedish crackdown on Kurdish militants there.

It eventually relented in 2024, with the parliament greenlighting Sweden's accession to the US-led military alliance.

F.AbuZaid--SF-PST