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ISTANBUL: Three journalists from the left-leaning BirGun newspaper were detained for several hours under anti-terror legislation over a story linked to Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, the paper said Sunday.
The move was denounced by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Turkiye’s main opposition CHP party.
Journalists Ugur Koc and Berkant Gultekin, who work for the online BirGun.net, and its managing editor Yasar Gokdemir were taken from their homes late Saturday for “targeting individuals engaged in counterterrorism efforts,” BirGun editor-in-chief Ibrahim Varli wrote on X.
He said it was over a story about a journalist from the pro-government Sabah newspaper visiting Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Akin Gurlek, which “had already been announced by (Sabah) itself.” Varli accused authorities of “trying to intimidate the press and society with investigations and detentions.”
The trio were released after appearing in court in Istanbul on Sunday. They were not formally arrested.
About 100 protesters gathered outside the court, holding up copies of the paper and signs saying: “BirGun will not be silent” and “Journalism is not a crime,” an AFP correspondent said. Three hundred people demonstrated in Ankara.
Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the detentions “unacceptable.”
“This action, over a news story critical of ‘prosecutor impartiality’, is unjustified,” he wrote on X.
Articles or comments about Istanbul’s top prosecutor have triggered several legal probes in recent months, including the latest investigation into Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as well as another probe last year into CHP opposition leader Ozgur Ozel.
Writing on X, Ozel denounced the arrests as “an unprecedented disgrace.”
“The detention of journalists Ugur Koc, Berkant Gultekin and Yasar Gokdemir for publishing a news item that was already published by Sabah newspaper is an unprecedented disgrace. Trying to fabricate a crime out of this is a sign of guilt,” he wrote.
Ozel was placed under investigation in November for “insulting a public official” and “targeting individuals involved in counter-terror efforts” over remarks about Gurlek, whom he has called a “mobile guillotine” — a phrase he used again on X on Sunday.
On January 6, the MLSA media rights group said there were at least 30 journalists and media workers in prison and four under house arrest in Turkiye. It said in 2024, it monitored 281 freedom of expression trials involving 1,856 defendants, 366 of whom were journalists.
The number of detained journalists has since increased. Three journalists for the opposition Halk TV were detained in late January for broadcasting an interview with an expert witness involved in probes involving opposition CHP mayors, including Imamoglu.
Two were granted conditional release but editor-in-chief Suat Toktas remains behind bars, in a move denounced by the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) as “a political move by Turkish authorities to silence critical voices.”
In another investigation ordered by Gurlek, Melisa Sozen, an actor who played a Kurdish militant in a 2017 series of the hit French spy thriller “The Bureau,” was quizzed by police this week on grounds of alleged “terrorist propaganda,” DHA news agency and Halk TV said.
The probe was related to the fatigues she wore for the part, which were allegedly similar to those worn by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militants that Ankara says are linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).