12 Journalists and Writers in Detention Referred to Court

Click to read the article in Turkish

12 of the 35 journalists and columnists who had a detention warrant issued against them have been taken into custody and processed in the police station.

The police procedures of the 12 individuals of the 35 persons in detention some of whom are journalists, have been completed.

Nurullah Öztürk, Rasih Yılmaz, Murat Aksoy, Abdullah Alparslan Akkuş, Dinçer Gökçe, İskender Yunus Tiryaki, Levent Arap, Ömer Şahin, Ayhan Şimşek, Atilla Taş, Gökçe Fırat Çulhaoğlu and Mutlu Çölgeçen among the above mentioned 12 were referred to the court.

What happened?

A detention warrant was issued for the 35 journalists and academics in accordance with the recent evidence obtained in the investigation run by İsmail Uçar, İstanbul Vice Public Prosecutor, and Murat Çağlak, prosecutor in the Terror and Organized Crimes Bureau against the Fethullah Gülen Community upon the coup attempt in July 15.  

The group consists of writers and other staff from the Zaman, Millet, Meydan, and Bugün Yeni Hayat daily newspapers, as well as the Rotahaber and Samanyoluhaber websites. State-run Anadolu Agency reported the investigation under the headline “Investigation into FETÖ/PDY media network”.

12 people were taken into custody in operations in İstanbul, Ankara, and Kocaeli.

The names of of the suspects in the detention list, including the 23 who could not be found at home in police raids are as follows:

Ergun Babahan, Eyüp Can Sağlık, Mehmet Yavuz Baydar, Erhan Başyurt, Abdülkerim Balcı, Asım Yıldırım, Önder Deligöz, Ali Selçuk Gültaşlı, Şemseddin Efe, Turhan Bozkurt, Yonca Kaya Şahin, Ali Yurttagül, Ayşe Özkalay, Can Bahadır Yüce, Celil Sağır, Faruk Arslan, Hasan Cücük, İbrahim Öztürk, Kemal Gülen, Mahmut Akpınar, Osman Özsoy, İhsan Yılmaz and Savaş Genç. (EA)

Photograph: Mustafa Hatipoğlu, Anadolu Agency (AA)