Kurdish journalist charged with membership of PKK gets bail

October 14, 2016
Issue 
Journalist Renas Lelikan's supporters outside the court.

A Kurdish journalist charged with being a member of a proscribed terrorist group — the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — was granted bail in the NSW Supreme Court on October 14. He was released on strict conditions, including a surety of $1.5 million.

Sydney-based Renas Lelikan was charged after he returned to Australia in July from northern Iraq, where the PKK is fighting Islamic State (IS).

Lelikan, who appeared via video link, was originally held in Sydney’s Silverwater Prison, but was transferred to Goulburn “Supermax” jail following death threats against him by IS sympathisers.

The court was told Lelikan was being held in isolation and was only allowed out of his cell for an hour a day.

The PKK has been a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia since August 2005.

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