Turkish police detained dozens of people in a wave of raids targeting suspected members of the “press and propaganda wing” of a banned Kurdish separatist group accused of committing acts of terrorism, the semi-official Anatolian Agency reported Tuesday. In a move that alarmed human rights organizations, journalists’ associations and press freedom activists, police swept up a number of journalists in the raids.
Freedom for Journalists Platform, an umbrella group that represents dozens of Turkish journalist associations and unions, announced that 38 of their colleagues have been detained. As the sun set over Istanbul, police were still searching the downtown offices of Dicle News Agency, another pro-Kurdish media outlet. Six Dicle employees, five reporters and an accountant, had been arrested from their homes on Friday, said Silan Ozhan, a Dicle journalist.
Turkey has been battling a Kurdish separatist insurgency led by guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) since the 1980s. The conflict has claimed more than 30,000 lives, most of them members of the country’s long-oppressed ethnic Kurdish minority. Over the last year, Turkish authorities began rounding up suspects accused of being affiliated with a PKK-linked organization referred to as the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK).
Turkey is among the bottom 40 countries of the world on the press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders, dropping from 102 to 138 since 2008. According to the Turkish Journalists Union, Turkey currently holds at least 63 journalists in prison. That number is likely to grow before the day’s end.
A growing number of writers and academics have been detained in conjunction with several sprawling investigations into alleged coup plots and terrorism plots. Many of these suspects spend months in detention without charge awaiting trial.
Source: CNN.com
Image: Press TV
Recent Comments