A Swedish journalist who was arrested in Turkey for insulting the country’s president has been set free, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Friday.
Joakim Medin, a journalist for Swedish newspaper Dagens ETC, was detained upon arriving in Turkey in March to cover protests that erupted after the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a popular opposition leader and primary challenger to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“Swedish journalist Joakim Medin is on his way home from Turkey to Sweden,” Kristersson said in a post on X.
Kristersson thanked the staff of Sweden’s foreign ministry “who, under the leadership of Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, have worked intensively on this matter.” He also thanked “my European colleagues who have been helpful in the process.”
Medin had been charged with insulting the president, a crime in Turkey, and with membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group that Turkey designates as a terrorist organization. The PKK announced on Monday that it will disband and disarm, ending 40 years of conflict with Turkey.
Relations between Sweden and Turkey have been rocky in the past, with the Turkish government initially refusing to ratify Stockholm’s bid to join NATO over, among other things, the presence of Kurdish groups in the Nordic country.
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