Development Sweden #64. "US budget reduction to UN a signal of disregard", says Jan Eliasson.
Dear readers,
Welcome to Development Sweden! In this issue former UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson voices his criticism of the USA plan to further reduce it support to the UN system. We give you a background to why the Swedish journalist Joakim Medin is facing 12 years of prison in Turkey (Türkiye), as well as a column by Swedish writer and journalist Kurdo Baksi. And what did DAC’s annual report reveal about Sweden’s ODA?
With holiday season starting in May Development Sweden will resume publication every second week, if nothing urgent happens, of course.
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Our headlines
Who is Joakim Medin, the Swedish journalist risking 12 years in a Turkish prison?
Column: “Journalism is not a crime, not in any country”.
Former UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson on the effects of US budget cuts.
Sweden’s ODA down by 13.4 per cent in 2024.
Who is Joakim Medin, the Swedish journalist risking 12 years in a Turkish prison?
The Swedish journalist Joakim Medin has been held in the high-security Marmara prison in Turkey since March 30. On April 30 the trail against him starts. Joakim Medin is charged with ‘insulting the President’ and could risk 12 years of imprisonment. Why is Turkey doing this against a NATO ally?
Joakim Medin was arrested on March 27 upon his arrival in Istanbul, he is accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and “belonging to an armed terrorist organisation”. The trial of Joakim Medin, the imprisoned Swedish journalist in Turkey, starts on April 30.
Joakim Medin is a Swedish journalist, author, lecturer, and photographer, working for the newspaper Dagens ETC. He has devoted much of his career to monitoring, investigating, and analysing human rights and democracy issues around the world. He has written six books, the latest of which is called Kurdspåret - Sverige, Turkiet och priset för ett Natomedskap. The book is about the relationship between Sweden and Turkey during the Swedish application process to NATO. The book was nominated for the prestigious Swedish journalism award Guldspaden 2024.
Joakim Medin himself describes the Kurdish issue as one of his specialities. His involvement and journalistic coverage of the issue has for several years been a source of discontent for the Erdogan regime and its supporters. Joakim Medin's imprisonment and prosecution is widely seen as an attempt by the regime to silence journalists like him.
The trial of Joakim Medin on one of two charges, insulting the President, begins on Wednesday 30 April.
‘After being wanted for the crimes of ‘belonging to an armed terrorist organisation’ and ‘insulting the president’, the individual was arrested on arrival at Istanbul airport on 27 March and put in prison’, said the Turkish government's Centre for Combating Disinformation in a statement on 30 March, regarding Joakim Medin's detention.
The Swedish journalist's detention took place in the context of large protests in Istanbul against the arrest of opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu. The Istanbul mayor, widely seen as the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was arrested last week on corruption charges. Mr Medin's arrest also comes in the wake of the deportation of BBC correspondent Mark Lowen and the imprisonment of dozens of Turkish journalists covering the protests.
The Turkish government claims that the arrest warrant for Mr Medin ‘has nothing to do with journalistic activities'. Instead, they say it is about Medin's participation in a Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) demonstration in Stockholm in 2023.
On 23 April, it was announced that the trial of Joakim Medin for ‘insulting the President’ will start next week, on 30 April. The trial will take place in the capital Ankara and will be open to journalists, organisations, and the embassy to attend.
According to Mr Medin's lawyers, the Swedish journalist faces up to three years in prison on the sole charge of ‘insulting the President’. For the second charge, a terrorist offence, he could face a further nine years in prison. The trial for the terrorist offence charges has no date set yet.
- Joakim is being charged solely for his journalistic activities. There is no concrete, clear, or convincing evidence to support either the charge of insulting the President or the charge of membership of a terrorist organisation. The acts, presented as criminal offences in the indictments consist solely of Joakim's journalistic activities, including social media posts made for reporting purposes, interviews, and travel. Such activities are not considered criminal offences - neither in Turkey nor in Sweden,’ Veysel Ok, one of Joakim Medin's lawyers, told Dagens ETC.
Thibaut Bruttin, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders, condemns the detention of Joakim Medin.
‘We are very concerned about the transfer of journalist Joakim Medin to the Marmara maximum security prison. The reporter, who works for the Swedish daily Dagens ETC, is accused of ‘insulting the president’, a charge often used to silence journalists. Based on the evidence currently available, RSF calls for the immediate release of the special correspondent and demands that the Turkish authorities respect their commitments to the right to reliable information,’ Mr Bruttin said in a press release.
“Journalism is not a crime, not in any country”
The Turkish regime must immediately release Joakim Medin, and all journalists imprisoned simply for trying to report on the situation in Turkey, writes the Swedish author, journalist, and commentator Kurdo Baksi who was himself born in Turkey.
The opinions expressed in this article are those by the author.
The first message from Joakim Medin from inside prison.
‘Journalism is not a crime, not in any country. Joakim Medin. Silivri prison. 1 April 2025’. These handwritten words were scribbled a few days ago on a chequered sheet of paper by the Swedish journalist in Marmara prison, located in the small town of Silivri outside Istanbul.
Joakim's brave words about the vital importance of journalism touched me deeply. Would I have dared to write the same message if, like Joakim, I found myself in a Turkish prison with many prisoners who had criticised Turkey's despotic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Would I have dared to write these lines if, like Joakim, I had been accused of ‘insulting the President of Turkey’ and ‘membership of an armed terrorist organisation’?
I am not at all sure that I would have written something similar on a piece of paper. But I am absolutely sure of another fact. I don't want to live in a dark and silent world without independent journalism. I don't want to live in a world where despots manage to hide the truth. Free and independent journalism is as important to us as food and water! But journalism has many enemies because more and more states are now ruled by despots. Despots will do anything to keep the truth about their totalitarian rule, shady deals, and corruption scandals from coming to light. Despots do everything to hide their crimes against humanity. And many journalists who do their job by reporting the truth are murdered, kidnapped, or imprisoned. Many people here in Sweden are familiar with the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak, who has been held in a prison in Eritrea for more than 23 years. For more than 23 years he has been denied a lawyer, consular access, and family visits.
And the 2024 Report of Reporters Without Borders does not make for pleasant reading. In 2024 alone, 54 journalists were murdered globally, 31 of them in conflict zones, a record high. The sheer number of journalists murdered is hard to take in. In the same year, no less than 550 journalists were detained by different regimes around the world. These are journalists imprisoned by a state for reporting on a social problem or refusing to honour the leaders of their country. And 55 journalists were held hostage, mainly in Syria. As we know, the world's most dangerous terrorist organisation, the Islamic State (IS), held many journalist’s hostage and demanded ransoms for them. After the new terrorist labelled HTS movement took power in Damascus, many relatives are waiting for signs of life from their family members. But let's remember that ISIS still operates in hard-to-reach rural areas where it holds journalist’s hostage. There is no indication that ISIS will hand over hostages to the new rulers in Damascus. And the Reporters Without Borders report also tells us that a total of 95 journalists are missing in 35 states. Incredible but true!
These facts speak for themselves, but two things stand out. Many journalists pay too high a price for their profession, just like Joakim Medin. Free journalism and opinion-forming are not given phenomena, nothing we can take for granted. We must fight for free speech and independent journalism everywhere, every day. The dismantling of free and independent media can happen unexpectedly fast. We see it happening in different places.
Finally, the Turkish regime must immediately release Joakim Medin, and all journalists imprisoned simply for trying to report on the situation in Turkey. Freedom of the press is a fundamental right that must be respected. No journalist should be arrested, deported, or harassed because of their work. Because journalism is not a crime, journalists are not criminals, not in any country!
Freedom to Joakim Medin!
Kurdo Baksi
Kurdo Baksi was born in Batman, Turkey and is of Kurdish descent. He is a writer of several books and columnist in the magazine Journalisten. He came to Sweden in 1980 along with his parents and four siblings.