Sixteen Turkish journalists were imprisoned Thursday for “belonging to a terrorist organization” in Diyarbakir, in the Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey, according to the act of imprisonment consulted by AFP.
Working for media and production companies close to the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), 20 journalists were arrested on June 8 for “belonging to the press section” of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered terrorist by Ankara and its Western allies.
In police custody since, sixteen of them were imprisoned on Thursday, including Serdar Altan, co-president of an association of journalists, accused of “belonging to a terrorist organization”, according to the act of imprisonment and the one of the journalists’ lawyers, Resul Temir, interviewed by AFP.
The other journalists were released under judicial supervision.
According to local media, the journalists were questioned by the prosecutor about the content of their articles.
“This suggests a pre-election maneuver to pull the rug out from under the feet of the Kurdish political class and deprive them of a means of expression,” reacted the representative in Turkey of the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Erol Onderoglu. , interviewed by AFP.
He also points out that these arrests come at a time when Turkey says it is preparing an offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
NGOs regularly denounce the erosion of press freedom in Turkey, which ranks 149th out of 180 in the 2022 press freedom ranking published by RSF.
The HDP, the third largest group in the Turkish Parliament, is accused by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being the “political showcase” of the PKK.
Since 2016, several hundred members of the HDP have been arrested, including its charismatic leader, Selahattin Demirtas, imprisoned despite European protests.