Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Asharq Al-Awsat

Turkey Issues Detention Warrants for 101 People on Alleged Terrorism Links

Photo: Reuters

Turkish authorities have issued detention warrants for 101 people including lawyers and doctors as part of what they called terrorism-related investigations, a security source and state-owned Anadolu news agency said on Friday.

Authorities launched the operation from the southeastern province of Diyarbakir and sought suspects across four cities and a total of 106 residential addresses, the source said.

Seventy-four suspects have already been detained, the source said.

The suspects were believed to be connected to the Democratic Society Congress, which the source and Anadolu defined as the legislative arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.

Anadolu said the authorities found guns, documents, and digital material at the suspects' addresses.

Milena Buyum, Turkey campaigner for Amnesty International, said the lawyers' detentions clashed with recent talk of judicial reforms, which have also been mentioned by President Tayyip Erdogan.

On Thursday, Erdogan's close ally and former deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, emphasized the importance of the justice system in an interview.

"These raids are the opposite of the kind of reform that Arinc spoke of only last night, where detention is exceptional and judges take 'pro-freedom decisions,'" Buyum wrote on Twitter.

She said the DTK was a Kurdish umbrella organization for civil society.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, has fought against the state in the southeast since 1984. A ceasefire collapsed in 2015.

The Ankara state prosecutor's office ordered the detention of 60 people in September, including 48 lawyers and others in the legal sector, suspected of operating in support of the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.