JOURNALISTS’ unions yesterday urged Turkey to drop charges against 18 of their colleagues accused of spreading “terrorist propaganda.”

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its European wing the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have rallied behind the journalists, who work for the daily newspapers Cumhuriyet, Millet, Sok, Posta, Yurt, Bugun, Ozgur Gundem, Aydinlik and Birgun.

They were charged after publishing photos showing a militant from the outlawed Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) pointing a gun at a prosecutor who was killed in a failed hostage rescue operation on March 31.

Prosecutors in the Nato-member state are seeking prison sentences of up to seven-and-a-half years for the 18 journalists.

One of the 18, Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dundar compared the case with the broadcasting of the footage depicting the execution of journalists by Isis.

“Seven-and-a-half years of jail for publishing a photo of a hostage taken by the DHKP-C but nothing for broadcasting footage of hostages taken by Isis,” Mr Dundar wrote on his social media account.

IFJ president Jim Boumelha said: “This latest threat to criminalise journalists as terrorists is unacceptable in any democratic society.

“We urge the authorities to allow journalists to do their jobs in order to inform the Turkish population.

“Journalists should be allowed to make their own editorial decision without the fear of censorship or imprisonment,” EFJ president Mogens Blicher Bjerregard added.

“The government must stop abusing the judicial system and using it to silence journalists and critical voices.”