Turkey's women-only news site, Jin News Agency, won't cower

After being shut down for propagating 'terror', Jin News Agency fights for freedom of press

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A news website in the Kurdish-majority Turkish city of Diyarbakir, staffed only by women, has been repeatedly shut down by the authorities over alleged terror propaganda but it is refusing to give up the fight to publish.

Written for women, Jin News Agency is run by a female-only team from the accountant to the photographer, and editors to camerawomen. The agency, set up in 2012, has come under pressure from the Turkish authorities who have closed it twice and shut off access to the agency seven times. Turkish authorities accuse the agency of making "terror propaganda" for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has argued there is no difference between a "terrorist holding a gun or a bomb or those who use their pen to serve their aims."

Camerawoman Beritan Elyakut, working for the agency for five years, complained the website was unable to "reach the outside world". "What else can we do?" she added as she filmed a story ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, saying the website use different domain names "but closures continued".

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