The article below originally appeared in the New York Times on January 5th, 2016. It was written by Ceylan Yeginsu.
ISTANBUL — Mohammed Rasool, an Iraqi Kurdish journalist working for Vice News, was released on bail from a maximum-security Turkish prison on Tuesday after being held for almost four months on terrorism charges.
Mr. Rasool, 25, was arrested on Aug. 27 with two British colleagues while they were covering the conflict between Kurdish militants and Turkish security forces in southeastern Turkey. The two Britons, Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury, were released on Sept. 3 and deported, but Mr. Rasool was kept in custody awaiting trial.
Vice News, an American-based online news outlet, confirmed his release in a statement on Tuesday. Mr. Rasool will still face trial on charges of “working on behalf of a terrorist organization,” Vice News quoted a Turkish court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir as saying, and he will not be permitted to leave Turkey before the trial.
The government has been cracking down on opposition media outlets, jailing some Turkish journalists for critical coverage and expelling some Western journalists in recent years.
After a cease-fire broke down in July, the resumption of fighting between Kurdish militants and the government made much of southeastern Turkey a war zone. Many districts are under curfew and are off limits to journalists.
Civilians have been killed in the crossfire, including Mr. Rasool’s Kurdish lawyer, Tahir Elci, who was shot dead in November after a clash at a news conference.
