Firat News Agency
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Firat News Agency (ANF) ( ku, Ajansa Nûçeyan a Firatê, tr, Fırat Haber Ajansı) is a Kurdish news agency that gathers and broadcasts news from the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, broadly concerning Kurdish matters. The news agency has offices in Amsterdam and journalists around the world. It has been variously described as pro-Kurdish, pro-
PKK The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sout ...
, or PKK-affiliated. CBC and
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...
have described ANF as being "close" to the PKK, and
Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service cons ...
states the two entities have "links". The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
have alternately labelled ANF "pro-Kurdish" and "pro-PKK". Because of ANF's alleged links with the PKK, access to its websites from
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
has been repeatedly blocked by Turkish courts, its social media accounts active in the country have been closed, and its journalists have been detained in Turkey. In addition, Twitter has blocked ANF at the request of the Turkish government.


Arrest of Maxime Azadi

On 15 December 2016, French-Turkish ANF journalist Maxime Azadi was arrested in
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...
after Turkey issued an
Interpol Red Notice An Interpol notice is an international alert circulated by Interpol to communicate information about crimes, criminals, and threats by police in a member state (or an authorised international entity) to their counterparts around the world. The in ...
for his arrest. The ANF appealed for his immediate release. The arrest was condemned by
press freedom Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...
groups, who said the incident highlighted Turkey's crackdown on press freedoms following the 2016 coup attempt. The UK-based NGO
Fair Trials Fair Trials is a UK-registered non-governmental organization which works for fair trials according to international standards of justice and the right to a fair trial, identifying where criminal justice is failing, alerting the world to the prob ...
described his arrest as Turkish misuse of Interpol's Red Notice system, and the Council of Europe's Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists released a media freedom alert pertaining to the arrest. The
European Federation of Journalists The European Federation of Journalists is the European regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists. It is the largest organisation of journalists in Europe, representing about 320,000 journalists in 71 journalists’ organ ...
released a statement, stating "We are very concerned about this arrest which constitutes a dangerous precedent. More than 120 journalists are behind bars in Turkey, where the authorities do not hesitate to abuse anti-terrorist laws to suppress the opposition press. Belgium and other European states should not be complicit in the massive purges ordered by the Turkish government. Dozens of Turkish and Kurdish journalists exiled in Europe would be in a situation of dramatic insecurity". On 23 December, Azadi was released on bail, leading the
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 46 member states, with a p ...
to mark the case resolved, concluding it "was no longer an active threat to media freedom".


References


External links

* 2005 establishments in the Netherlands Companies based in Amsterdam Kurdish-language mass media News agencies based in the Netherlands Organizations established in 2005 Kurdish-language websites Persian-language websites {{Turkey-media-stub