Kurdish journalist Çetin Kurşun has been sentenced to 13 years and three months imprisonment in Mardin. The sentence was handed down in the retrial of Kurşun for “membership in a terrorist organization” and "spreading propaganda". The journalist and his legal counsel did not attend the trial before the 2nd Heavy Penal Court. After the prosecution's closing argument and a break for deliberations, the court announced the verdict and issued an arrest warrant.

Çetin Kurşun was an employee of the Kurdish newspaper Azadiya Welat, which was closed by an emergency decree, and was arrested on 6 February 2018 by masked special forces who drove in armoured vehicles in front of his flat in the Kiziltepe district. The door of the flat was broken open with a battering ram and the inventory of the flat was destroyed. Subsequently, his brother Sedat Kurşun was also arrested at his workplace. The journalist was released from prison on 30 May 2019. The trial for alleged “membership of a terrorist organization” was merged on appeal with another charge of "terrorist propaganda". Kurşun was accused of running the website Ciwannews.