A prosecutor in Istanbul has remanded eight journalists in custody, reversing a decision to release them after they were arrested for covering Turkey’s largest anti-government protests in years.
The journalists were among 10 arrested in dawn raids on their homes earlier this week. An Istanbul court initially ruled the journalists should be released before reversing the decision and issuing an official arrest order, according to their lawyers and representatives.
Among the detained are Yasin Akgül of Agence France-Presse and the former AFP photojournalist Bülent Kılıç, who was named Guardian agency photographer of the year in 2014 for his coverage of Ukraine, events on the Turkish border with Syria and the deadly crash of flight MH17.
They were held after photographing mass anti-government demonstrations that have swept Turkey for the first time in years, prompted by the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu last week. More than 1,400 people have been arrested in connection with the protests.
The journalists were all charged with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches and failing to disperse despite warnings”, court documents showed.
Akgül’s arrest drew a sharp rebuke by AFP chairman Fabrice Fries, who said his detention was “unacceptable”.
“This is why I am asking you to intervene as quickly as possible to obtain the rapid release of our journalist,” Fries said in a letter addressed to the Turkish presidency.
“Yasin Akgül was not part of the protest,” he wrote. “It is the job of a photographer to be where the events are occurring, including getting between protesters and the forces of order.”
The court decision was also slammed as “scandalous” by Reporters Without Borders, with the Turkish Photojournalists Union denouncing it as “unlawful, unconscionable and unacceptable”.
İmamoğlu is a longstanding rival of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the lone candidate seen as capable of challenging him at the ballot box in an upcoming election. On the same day that İmamoğlu was sent to a high-security facility on the edge of Istanbul, he was also nominated as a presidential candidate by his opposition Republican People’s party.
Demonstrations that began outside Istanbul city hall have quickly grown, with tens of thousands gathering each night to vent their frustration at decades of rule by Erdoğan and his Justice and Development party (AKP).
The protests have drawn an increasingly fierce response by the Turkish authorities. Turkish interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said 1,418 people have been arrested in connection with demonstrations in the past week.
“While there are currently 979 suspects in custody, 478 people will be brought to court today,” he said. “No concessions will be made to those who attempt to terrorise the streets, to attack our national and moral values, and our police officers.”
Meanwhile, Erol Önderoğlu, of Reporters Without Borders, told AFP: “This is the first time that a clearly identified journalist has, in the exercise of his duties, been formally arrested on the basis of this law against gatherings and demonstrations.”
Turkish media expert Emre Kızılkaya, of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said that while journalists are frequently detained in Turkey, an official request from prosecutors to arrest journalists and therefore keep them detained is extremely rare.
“I think one of the reasons is that these are photojournalists with an international profile,” he said. “Six of these journalists were detained in Istanbul for violating a law on public demonstrations.”
He added that the arrests showed journalists were not protected from covering demonstrations, despite attending the protests in a professional capacity.
“The authorities ignore that this is a constitutionally protected right, saying that the Istanbul governorate banned demonstrations and the journalists were present. Being there is enough,” said Kızılkaya.
