Journalist Ahmet Şık Taken Into Custody

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

Journalist Ahmet Şık was taken into custody in his apartment by police this morning (December 29).

Attorney Can Atalay has reported that Şık would be delivered to İstanbul Security Directorate after a health check in Haseki Hospital.

Şık was not officially told, on which charges he was taken into custody.

Ahmet Şık announced in the morning hours on Twitter that he was taken into custody.

State-run Anadolu Agency (AA) reported that Ahmet Şık was taken into custody by Security Directorate units as a part of an investigation run by İstanbul Public Chief Prosecutor's Office.

According to AA's report, the investigation was launched on claims of "denigrating the Republic of Turkey, its judicial bodies, military and security organization" and "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" on his Twitter postings and some articles he had published on Cumhuriyet daily.

Some Tweets, on grounds of which Şık was charged have been listed as follows;

"Government and its ... who are trying to prove that the assassin [of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov] was not from al-Nusra but from FETÖ (Fethullahist Terrorist Organization), what will you do about the fact, that the assassin was a police police officer?"

"You get offended when we say that the murderer is the state"

"Instead of comparing those who were burned in the basement of their houses in Cizre and others torn to pieces in the bomb explosion in İstanbul, object to both"

"If the action which [Peoples' Democratic Party MP] Sırrı Süreyya Önder is being charged with is a crime, isn't there supposed to be a bunch of suspects, starting with those sitting in the [Presidential] Palace?"

"Instead of arresting Tahir Elçi, they preferred to slaughter him, you are mafia, a bunch of murderers"

"Do not those, trying to prove that the PYD (Democratic Union Party) which US (United States) and the EU (European Union) identify as their ally against the jihadist terror, count as usual suspects?"

Besides the above mentioned, Şık is reportedly being charged for his following reports and interviews;

-"Either Apo to Kandil, or we to İmralı", report published on Cumhuriyet daily's news site on March 14, 2015;

- Interview with Cemil Bayık

- "What we do is journalism, yours is treason", report written on July 8, 2015,

- "MİT-Trucks Prosecutor: MİT has closed its eyes to Reyhanlı, if we had not given them information, we would have prevented it" published on July 9, 2015,

- The mystery behind the Trucks revealed" published on February 13, 2015

- His statements on the freedom of expression workshop held in Heybeliada with the partnership of the European Parliament on September 23-26, 2014.

(AS/DG)