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Loup Bureau is a French journalist. At the end of July 2017, in the context of growing press freedom violations in Turkey and the arrests of Turkish journalists accompanying them, he was arrested at the border between Iraq and Turkey, and detained by the Turkish authorities for "terrorist" activities in connection with Kurdish fighters from Syria.

Studies
Loup Bureau is originally from Orvault, in the suburbs of Nantes, in Loire-Atlantique. He began his studies with an audiovisual BTS in Montaigu, Vendée. He is described by one of his friends as "first a technician, a visual professional".

He studied at the Institut des Hautes Études des Communications Sociales (Ihecs) in Brussels and at the IUT for Journalism in Lannion.

Journalist career
Loup Bureau seeks to combine the pursuit of his studies and work in the field, particularly in border areas, as evidenced by his photo reports made in Pakistan or Syria.

If he had to defend his thesis in September 2017 to conclude his studies in journalism, Loup Bureau has however produced numerous reports in the field, especially in Egypt, where he remained a year after the 2011 revolution, and in Ukraine, where he co-produced an award-winning report on Maidan and witnessed the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Arrest and incarceration
On July 26, 2017, Loup Bureau was arrested by the Turkish authorities near the Iraqi border, in the region of Silopi, in the province of Şırnak; he was jailed on August 1, on charges of "activities related to terrorism".

At the end of August 2017, he was held pending trial for "assisting a terrorist organization". In an article in the left-wing Turkish daily BirGün, Loïc Bureau, the father of Loup Bureau, said, however, that “journalism is not a crime. It is unacceptable that a journalist be jailed for his articles and reporting ". The Turkish government calls into question a report produced in 2013, for TV5 Monde, among Kurdish fighters in Syria; these belong to the People's Protection Units (YPG), an organization considered terrorist by Turkey. Loup Bureau faces thirty years in prison on the basis of these charges.

Release requests
The release of Loup Bureau is requested by the NGO Reporters Without Borders, which organized a demonstration in support of this request. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs also intervened in favor of Loup Bureau. The American newspaper The New York Times recalled on this occasion that Turkey is now ranked by Reporters Without Borders in 155th place (out of 180) in terms of respect for press freedom.

According to one of Loup Bureau's lawyers, this arrest is "a milestone [which] has been crossed" by the Turkish authorities in the repression of Western journalists. In a joint statement, three unions of French journalists - SNJ, SNJ-CGT and CFDT-Journalists, themselves supported by the European Federation of Journalists - demanded "that the French government do everything possible" to obtain his release, without limit themselves to simple words. The three unions add:

On August 15, 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a telephone interview about the young journalist. In the article evoking this conversation, Le Monde recalls the current situation of the press in Turkey: not only are more than 160 journalists already in prison there, but 35 arrest warrants have recently been issued against journalists accused of "supporting the terrorism ”, leading to ten arrests in Istanbul, including that of Burak Ekici, of the opposition daily BirGün (fr). In addition, those who defend these journalists are themselves targeted: for example, on August 14, the pro-government newspapers Akşam, Star and Sabah published the names of Turkish journalists affiliated with a support group for jailed journalists, presenting them as "rebellion foments, traitors",.

At the end of August, it was announced that the request for release made by lawyers for Loup Bureau had been rejected, which should result in the extension of at least one month of his imprisonment. The appeal against his release was also dismissed on September 6, 2017.

Release
On September 17, 2017, the Turkish authorities decided to release the French journalist.

Publication
In 2019, Loup Bureau published the book Chronicles of a Prisoner: Fifty-two Days in a Turkish Prison.

Related articles

 * Liberté de la presse en Turquie
 * Mathias Depardon