01/03/2017 (Agence Europe) – At the European Parliament's plenary session on Wednesday 1 March, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker spoke out against the detention of Deniz Yücel, a correspondent for German newspaper Die Welt who has dual German and Turkish nationality. The accusations against Yücel seem linked to an article on a cyber-attack on Turkey's energy minister, Berat Albayrak (who is also the son-in-law of Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan), and to an interview with a leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Cemil Bayik. Defending the principles of the EU, and in particular the freedom of the press, Juncker told MEPs: "Look at Turkey, where German journalists are imprisoned without any reason because they have dared to say what needed to be said". On 21 February, the spokesperson for the European External Action Service said that the EU was following Yücel's case closely (see EUROPE 11732). (CG)