A Turkish appeals court threw out a lower court's conviction against a Finnish-Turkish reporter Ayla Albayrak on Tuesday, according an article from The Wall Street Journal, her former employer.
Albayrak was found guilty of disseminating terrorist propaganda last year by a court in Turkey and was handed a 25-month prison sentence. The lower court's decision was founded on an article she had written for the Wall Street Journal in 2015 on the Kurdish minority in Turkey, which the paper had defended as balanced and objective.
According to a statement from the Reporters Without Borders, Albayrak says she hopes that the overturning of her sentence will not overshadow the continued plight of journalists in Turkey. The advocacy group reports that Turkey is "the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists" at present, after an abortive coup in July 2016 gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the reason he needed to eliminate dozens of media outlets and jail many members of the press.
Albayrak's 2017 sentence was roundly criticized in Finland and elsewhere. Finnish authorities summoned the Turkish ambassador for talks, and the European Parliament demanded that the court decision be reversed. Finland's highest court also issued a statement on the Turkish ruling.
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö sent a letter to Erdogan in the autumn, and Finland's Interior Minister Kai Mykkänen met with his Turkish counterpart Süleyman Soylu last month to once again discuss the issue.