Journalist Karaoğlan Seized in Sur, Photos Deleted

Click here to read the article in Turkish / Haberin Türkçesi için buraya tıklayın

Nokta magazine photo journalist Güliz Karaoğlan from fourth News Watch group going to Diyarbakır, was seized by special forces cops yesterday and all of her photos were deleted.

Karaoğlan explaining what she went through to bianet, stated that she met with special operation cops’ intervention as she was taking photos of giant barricades made of barbed wires and sandbags, and spoke as follows:

“I was seized behind police barricade”

“I was taking photo behind police barricade. At that moment, special operation members approached and seized me.

“Even though the reporters nearby made tremendous effort, police seized me by pulling me to the other side of the barricade.

“Even I told police I was a journalist and was just taking photo with no other motive, they deleted all photos in my camera”.

“Do you think those in there are innocent?”

“I couldn’t object at that moment because I didn’t know what would happen to me. ‘Do you think there are innocent people in there?’, they asked me.

“Afterwards, they checked my GBT (criminal record check) and said they will wait for the captain to come. I was seized during 30 minutes, until the captain came. They didn’t start any detention proceedings. They released me upon arrival of the captain”.

Fourth News Watch

Following figures take part in the fourth group: T24 blog writer Aram Ekin Duran, Aysel Kılıç from Demokrat Haber (Democrat News), Güliz Karaoğlan Vural from Nokta magazine, Gülşen İşeri from İnsan Haber (Human News), Gülten Üstündağ from Today’s Zaman, freelance journalist Leyla Alp, Nevin Sungur from Açık Radyo, Pelin Cengiz from Haberdar, and Yavuz Baydar from P24.

Along with the last group, number of journalists going to Kurdish cities for the News Watch has risen to 34. (EKN/TK)