JINHA

AMED – Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist FrederikeGeerdink has been acquitted of spreading propaganda for an "illegal organization" through her reporting and social media posts, in the second hearing of her trial yesterday.

The prosecutor in the case had also requested Frederike's acquittal in her first hearing this past Wednesday. Yesterday, the bench voted 2-1 to acquit the journalist.

In her initial hearing last week, Frederikestood before the Diyarbakır judge. She mentioned the irony of the fact that one of the main pieces for which she was being tried, which allegedly "recruited" for the PKK, was in fact a piece on the difficulty of the politicization of Kurdish identity. Noting that whatever the content of her pieces, she had the right to free expression as a journalist, she requested her own acquittal.

"There is no denying. I am a journalist, even if you portray me as a propagandist," she said.

The charges were first filed afterFrederike was been arrested at her home and questioned on January 6.

(fk/cm)