Media groups ask Turkey for release of French journalist

PARIS – Media groups have appealed for the immediate release of a French freelance journalist detained in Turkey on suspicion of terrorism while reporting on a Kurdish population living in a border area.

Reporters sans Frontieres, the European Federation of Journalists and several journalist unions also asked the French government Thursday to do everything in its power to have Ankara free 27-year-old Loup Bureau, who worked for several news outlets in the past.

The French Foreign Ministry said it’s paying “close attention” to Bureau’s situation and that its embassy is acting to give him “consular protection as quickly as possible.”

The Frenchman was detained on July 26 after he crossed into Turkey from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. He’s accused of “aiding and assisting a terrorist organization.”