Faruk Akkan, Cihan News Agency
Medium:Internet
Charge:Anti-State
Imprisoned:July 27, 2016

Police detained Akkan, the general director of the Cihan News Agency, at his home in Istanbul on July 27, 2016, according to a message posted to his Twitter account on his behalf, referring to him in the third person.

Istanbul's Third Court of Penal Peace ordered the 46-year-old journalist jailed, pending trial "based on the strong suspicion" that he was a member of a terrorist organization. He was accused of being a follower of exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish government accuses of maintaining a terrorist organization and "parallel state structure" (FETÖ/PDY, by its Turkish acronym) and of masterminding a July 15 failed military coup.

According to court documents, the court based its conclusion on Akkan's employment at the Cihan News Agency, which it called "within the structure of FETÖ/PDY's media arm." A court in March 2016 ordered the news agency's parent company, the Feza Media Group, placed under government-appointed trustee, on the grounds that it was a Gülenist mouthpiece.

Akkan told the court that he started working at the news agency's foreign desk in 2004 and then went to Russia in 2006 as a reporter, where he stayed until 2015, when he returned to Istanbul and became general director.

As of late 2016, Akkan had not been indicted, and no date had been set for his trial.

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