Turkey releases Swedish journalist who was suspected of insulting Erdogan

The Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who was imprisoned in Turkey on March 27, is on his way home, according to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Friday evening. Medin was in Turkey to report on protests against the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, after which he was arrested.

He was sentenced at the end of April to a suspended prison sentence of eleven months before insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Medin was still awaiting another case, in which he was accused of terrorist crimes. Before that he was a maximum prison sentence of nine years.

« Hard work in relative silence has paid off, » wrote Prime Minister Kristersson on X. He added that Medin would land in Sweden in a few hours. Kristersson thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European colleagues for their assistance in achieving Medins release.

In addition to insulting Erdogan, Medin was accused of participating in a demonstration in Stockholm of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), an organization that regard the European Union and Turkey as terrorist. At that protest, a doll that President Tayyip Erdogan had to present was hung for the town hall.

The 40-year-old Medin, reporter at the Swedish Dagblad Days etcdenied having participated in this demonstration. At the time of the demonstration he worked in Germany, he said in court.

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