Australian-Kurdish journalist granted bail in PKK-related case

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – An Australian court granted bail on Friday to a Sydney-based Kurdish journalist Renas Lelikan charged with membership in a Kurdish organization that is designated terrorist by Turkey and its Western allies.

The New South Wales Supreme Court granted Lelikan a bail on strict conditions which included his supporters posting more than $1.5 million surety, reported Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC news.

Australian authorities accuse Lelikan of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Late in July he was refused bail.

Lelikan, 38, a dual Turkish and Australian national, was being held in solitary confinement at a supermax prison since July 2015 after his return from the Kurdistan Region where he was stuck in Makhmour refugee camp for more than nine months.

His original passport had been held in France after he was convicted of being associated with the PKK, said the ABC.

He fled France for the Kurdistan Region shortly after his conviction, using the passport of a relative.

Lelikan's lawyer has argued that his client posed no threat to the public and was being harassed in jail by inmates sympathetic to the Islamic State (group) that Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria are fighting against.

Allying with Turkey, Australia designates the PKK as a terror group since 2005 according to the advocacy group "Australians for Kurdistan" that petitions the government to lift label.

Australian Government relisted the PKK as a terrorist organization in 2015 the same year when it banned its citizens from joining any groups fighting in Syria and Iraq on the grounds of national security.

Editing by Ava Homa