According to lawyer Resul Temur, reporting on the Kurdish issue, solitary confinement of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and clashes with PKK are automatically deemed to be grounds for prosecuting journalist. 

FERİD DEMİREL

As of 3 May World Press Freedom Day, there are 32 journalists in prisons in Turkey, according to Expression Interrupted’s data.

The number of imprisoned journalists was 28 before 23 April 2024, when three of the nine journalists working for Kurdish media outlets who were arrested in İstanbul, Ankara and Şanlıurfa as part of an investigation launched by the İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office were imprisoned pending trial, bringing the tally up to 31 -- before it went further up to 32 on 2 May. 

The journalists and media workers detained in the raids on 23 April appeared before the judge on duty at the İstanbul Courthouse on 26 April 2024. Mezopotamya Agency reporter Esra Solin Dal, Yeni Özgür Politika newspaper contributor Erdoğan Alayumat and Mezopotamya Agency reporter Mehmet Aslan were imprisoned pending trial on the charge of “membership in an armed terrorist organization.”

Yeni Yaşam newspaper editor Enes Sezgin, Jin magazine contributor Saliha Aras, Jin TV producer Beste Argat Balcı, former Mezopotamya Agency reporter Doğan Kaynak and journalists Şirin Ermiş and Yeşim Alıcı were released under judicial control measures.

According to information provided by the lawyers for the detainees, journalists were asked about their previous reporting during their detention and judge’s interrogation.

The mass arrests of Kurdish journalists affects their journalistic activities. Journalists have been detained en masse in raids targeting Kurdish press organizations since 2022.

On 8 June 2022, 20 journalists were arrested and 16 of them were imprisoned pending trial in a Diyarbakır-based investigation. On 25 October 2022, nine journalists were imprisoned pending trial as a result of home raids in Ankara, Diyarbakır, İstanbul, Mardin, Şanlıurfa and Van in an Ankara-based investigation. Hundreds of people, including journalists, were arrested in operations held in 15 provinces on 29 April 2023 as part of an Ankara-based investigation. Five journalists were imprisoned under this investigation. Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) Co-Chair and journalist Dicle Müftüoğlu and Mezopotamya Agency editor Sedat Yılmaz, who were among the detainees, were imprisoned pending trial on 3 May World Press Freedom Day. Sedat Yılmaz was released after eight months and Dicle Müftüoğlu was released after 10 months in remand.

Müftüoğlu: “They want to silence the voice of Kurdish journalists”

DFG Co-Chair Dicle Müftüoğlu thinks that the mass arrests and imprisonments of Kurdish journalists are connected with the current political agenda in Turkey. Müftüoğlu pointed out that Kurdish journalists are arrested and imprisoned especially before or after developments about the Kurdish question. Dicle Müftüoğlu stated that the arrests of nine journalists on 23 April 2024 was connected with the local elections, which took place on 31 March 2024, and said, “They want to silence the voice of Kurdish journalists.”

When asked about how Kurdish journalists, who are arrested and imprisoned en masse and Kurdish press organizations whose equipment and material are confiscated maintain their motivation for reporting, Dicle Müftüoğlu said that the number of news items produced falls immediately after each round of detentions and arrests, but after each operation, Kurdish journalists tell themselves, “We must really be doing the right thing.” Müftüoğlu went on as follows:

“Because when we look at the questions our most recently imprisoned colleagues were posed and the news items they were asked to explain, we see that all news items concerning the Kurdish question and solitary confinement were depicted as crimes. This means that anything written about the Kurdish question is depicted as a crime. So, we have a situation in which the very existence, identity, and language of a people of this geography is generally denied. People in this region are living through a major war, but the government wants to prevent us from writing about this fact and uses the judiciary as a tool to do so.”

“Prosecutor issued instructions to render us incapable of working”

Müftüoğlu said that sometimes they acted instead of their arrested colleagues and picked up the work they left incomplete or tried to take on more responsibility by not taking leave, and added that journalism equipment and materials confiscated in police raids have not been returned: “In the June 2022 operation on a production studio, they confiscated all equipment; all equipment in a space which contained four studios, including mixers, cameras, computer mice and lighting and they have still not returned them. The directorate of security presented this equipment as criminal tools. Just a year later, in an operation on 25 April 2023, the premises were searched again based on a detention order for someone who worked at the production company and some of the equipment was once again confiscated. At the time the police confiscated a computer mouse, and employees and the lawyer objected to it. They said that a mouse could not be considered digital equipment and requested that only the computer hard disk be confiscated, only a copy, if possible. One of the police officers then said, ‘The prosecutor has issued special instructions, we have instructions to make this place unworkable.’ Of course, we knew that these operations were aimed at rendering us incapable of working, but this was when we were confirmed by a person in an official capacity.”

Dicle Müftüoğlu said that sometimes they had to shoot footage using phones and sometimes they have to take turns using the equipment. She added: “This is a situation which was created by a tradition, not easy to understand by someone looking in, under so much pressure and immediate threat of operations and arrests. What the case here is every worker’s determination to make the world know about the truth and their passion for this. We try to continue working using various methods. As those who continue a tradition, we try to keep to our path.”

Lawyer Temur: “Kurdish journalists are tried for their work”

Lawyer Resul Temur, who spoke about the regular and mass detentions of Kurdish journalists, thinks this is intended to “destroy Kurdish journalism all together.” He said, “Judicial harassment of Kurdish journalists has continued unabated for many years. The pressure on journalists in the Kurdish press has gone beyond the aim of sending out a message and now aims to destroy Kurdish journalism all together. We may say that with respect to the Kurdish press, there has been a transition from extrajudicial executions to judicial executions. Instead of calling in individuals who produce programs, report news, or write columns using their own names to give a statement, they carry out organized detentions. This reveals the censorship of the entire society.”

Journalists working in the Kurdish press have generally been prosecuted based on the Turkish Penal Code and the Counter-Terrorism Law since the 1990s. Journalists are detained or imprisoned for “membership in a terrorist organization” or “terrorism propaganda.” However, both during detention and their interrogation by the judge, they are presented with copies of their own news items and asked why they produced them and sometimes why they do not do magazine or sports reporting. Journalists who were detained on 23 April 2024 were asked about why they reported on the condition of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is being held at the İmralı Type F High Security Prison and is not allowed to see his family or lawyers, or other matters relevant to the Kurdish issue.

Temur said “Reporting on the Kurdish question, solitary confinement and conflicts are used directly to form accusations” and added:

“Previously, when Kurdish journalists were put on trial, the state used to say, ‘We do not prosecute them for practicing journalism.’ They wanted to define Kurdish journalism on trial through their own indictments, stripping journalists of their professional activities and identities. They manipulated all forms of legal activity and defined it as illegal to strip journalists of their identity and to isolate them. To isolate journalists, they would define them directly as members of illegal organizations. When they could not put journalists on trial for membership in a terrorist organization, they prosecuted them for organization propaganda. Today’s trials are also founded on the same allegations. What is different is that allegations no longer avoid emphasizing journalism. All Kurdish journalists who were imprisoned pending trial in the last two years were accused directly based on their work. The state has made all reporting that does not conform to the official agenda the basis of accusations. Reporting on the Kurdish question, solitary confinement and zones of conflict are especially used to form accusations. Now, accusations directly target journalistic activities. Some Kurdish press organizations that operate legally are now described as ‘terrorist organization supporter’ and the reporting of journalists are described as ‘so-called news items’.”

Resul Temur said that the provisions of the Law on the Press was not applied in court cases against Kurdish journalists and that the editorial policy of media outlets employing Kurdish journalists or their preferred language of reporting can be used as grounds for accusations: “When it comes to Kurdish journalists, it seems it is enough to act according to a political logic rather than apply the law in trials.”