Female Turkish journalist stripped of parental rights for publishing video

A female journalist has lost custody of her children after being convicted for uploading a video related to the 2014 controversy over Turkey's intelligence services allegedly transferring weapons to Syrian rebels.

Arzu Yildiz, who has also received a 20-month jail sentence, was sentenced by a court in the southern city of Mersin on Wednesday, over the posting of a video on YouTube purporting to show Turkish prosecutors defending themselves to a closed court over the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) trucks controversy. The prosecutors were jailed after being accused of treason by then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for ordering a search of the trucks at the Syrian-Turkish border.

"Nobody can take my children away from me... not even the Sultan himself let alone the court,” Arzu Yildiz, a mother of two, told Can Erzincan TV outside the courtroom.

MEE cannot confirm why guardianship of her children had been taken away from Yildiz. The ruling does not mean that she will be physically seperated from her children, but she will lose the ability to make decisions on their behalf, such as choosing to enroll them in a specific school.

The ruling applies for two years in total.

“I thank everyone for their messages and support. I have no worries. I don’t care about whatever punishment they give me. I’m just doing my job,” Yildiz tweeted following the ruling.

In January 2014, a number of trucks belonging to the MIT were stopped by police while apparently travelling across the Syrian-Turkish border, after prosecutors recieve information that the trucks were carrying weapons to rebel groups in Syria.

The ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) denied the accusation, claiming the trucks carried humanitarian aid, but four former prosecutors who ordered the search and a former police officer were imprisoned over the stop-and-search, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing them of “treason and espionage”.

Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, respective editor-in-chief and Ankara bureau chief for the Cumhuriyet newspaper, were sentenced to five years in jail earlier this month after their newspaper released photos of the MIT trucks crossing the border.

Though the videos Yildiz released were from a closed court hearing, she pointed out in the court that numerous others have uploaded such videos without facing prosecution.

Turkey has repeatedly faced criticism for its treatment of journalists.

The latest press freedom index released by Reporters Without Borders put Turkey at a ranking of 151 out of 180 countries.