A Turkish flag. (Credit: AFP.)
Detained for seven weeks in Turkey and convicted for "insulting" Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Swedish journalist Joakim Medin celebrated his freedom on Saturday, just a few hours after his return to Sweden.
"Pretty much from the first day, I thought about what I was going to say now: Long live freedom, the freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement," he said at a press conference in Stockholm, where he appeared relieved.
"It's so good to be able to speak as I want, write and move as I want," he added, after incarceration, in isolation, at the Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul.
His wife Sofie Axelsson, who is expecting their first child, recounted receiving a text message on Thursday announcing his release. "It’s an indescribable relief, that this nightmare is over and that Joakim can be by my side when our daughter is born," she said. The exact nature of the negotiations between Sweden and Turkey are not known.
Earlier in the day, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard had emphasized that there had been no exchange. "There was no barter, no demand (from Turkey) was made," she insisted. Medin believed that his wife's advanced pregnancy contributed to his release, as well as the political context in Turkey with the dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The reporter for the Swedish newspaper Dagens ETC, 40, was arrested on March 27 upon his arrival in Istanbul, where he came to cover the protests triggered by the arrest on March 19 of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the main rival of President Erdogan.
At the end of April, he was sentenced to 11 months in prison suspended by an Ankara court for "insulting the president." Despite the suspended sentence, he remained in prison awaiting another trial for "membership in a terrorist organization" which is due to open on September 25. The journalist denies the Turkish judiciary's accusation that he had participated in January 2023 in Stockholm in a PKK demonstration.