Arrested Kurdish journalists not indicted despite two months behind bars

"Journalism is not a crime"

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Aziz Oruç, Safiye Alagaş, Serdar Altan, Mehmet Ali Ertaş, Ömer Çelik, Neşe Toprak, Mehmet Şahin, Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Elif Üngör, Remziye Temel, Suat Doğuhan, Lezgin Akdeniz, İbrahim Koyuncu, Abdurrahman Öncü, Ramazan Geciken, Mazlum Güler.

These are the names of 16 journalists and media employees who are remanded in custody in Diyarbakır. Detained on June 8 and remanded in custody after eight days, they have been behind bars for two months now.

An attorney for the journalists, Result Temur, said no indictment has been prepared and no reason has been provided for the arrests.

He said a confidentiality order was imposed on the case file and the right to a fair trial was violated.

"For people who are detained or arrested, the first fundamental right is the right to learn the charges against them. This right enables people to access the content of the file and evidence against them. It is important for a person to defend themselves. However, journalists' rights have been ignored since the day they were detained.

"While the reasons for their detention were not stated to them, evidence and comments related to the evidence were served to the pro-government media.

"The evidence that we could not learn about due to the confidentiality order but the pro-government media tried to manipulate alone demonstrated that the content of the file was journalistic activities. The reports in the pro-government media also showed that all evidence related to the file has actually been collected.

"Within the scope of the file, where all evidence has been collected, and then the arrests were made, an indictment has not yet been prepared. There is no reasonable and valid explanation for that. Moreover, documents requesting the arrest of the journalists had been prepared in advance.

"The fact that the indictment has not been prepared even though the preparation for the indictment was done is practically an example of punishment.

"It clearly understood from the prolonging of the process that the purpose is not a criminal investigation. It is also clear that the arrest decision was given for political purposes."

What happened?

On June 8, the police raided several homes and offices of news outlets in the predominantly Kurdish populated province of Diyarbakır. Twenty-two people, including 20 journalists, were detained.

After eight days in detention, a judgeship ruled for the arrest of 16 journalists on "terrorist propaganda" charges, citing their news reports and social media posts as evidence.

During their interrogation, the questions they were asked included what they meant by "Kurdish question" and whether they had received instructions, an attorney of the journalists had told bianet.

The arrests triggered a backlash from journalists and international organizations.

CLICK - BİA Media Monitoring Reports

(HA/VK)