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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Chris Johnston and Josy Forsdike

17 Turkish journalists charged with terror group membership

Nazlı Ilıcak
The veteran journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, 72, is among those detained. Photograph: Ihlas News Agency/AFP/Getty Images

A court in Istanbul has remanded 17 Turkish journalists in custody as international concern mounts over the government’s targeting of reporters.

Twenty-one journalists appeared before a judge in hearings that lasted until midnight on Friday. Four were freed but 17 have been charged with membership of a terror group, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Arrest warrants were issued this week for 89 journalists, at least 40 of whom have now been detained. The Turkish government has used a state of emergency law to order the closure of at least 131 newspapers, television and radio stations, publishers and news agencies.

Some of those arrested used to work for the Zaman newspaper, which had close links with the Hizmet movement of the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused Gülen of helping to organise the coup. Zaman was taken over by government-appointed trustees in March and is now strongly pro-Erdoğan.

Mahir Zeynalov, a Washington-based correspondent for Today’s Zaman, the English language version of the newspaper, has tweeted a series of images of Turkish journalists being arrested on Friday.

Veteran journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, 72, is one of the journalists detained.

The prominent commentator Bülent Mumay was one of those freed after appearing in court. He was later given a rapturous welcome by supporters.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The government crackdown is on media outlets and journalists it accuses of being linked to the Fethullah Gülen movement, which it blames for the foiled military coup.

“In the absence of any evidence of their role or participation in the violent attempt to overthrow the government, we strongly condemn this accelerated assault on the media, which further undermines Turkey’s democratic credentials.”

Amnesty International also condemned the arrests. Its deputy Europe director, Fotis Filippou, said: “Rounding up journalists and shutting down media houses is the latest assault on a media already weakened by years of government repression ... the authorities are intent on silencing criticism without regard to international law.”

In a surprise move, Erdoğan said late on Friday that he would drop all lawsuits brought against people for insulting him. The justice ministry said earlier this year that prosecutors had opened more than 1,800 cases against journalists, cartoonists and even children for insulting Erdoğan since he became president in 2014.

The move could be an attempt to silence his western critics, but it was not clear whether he would also abandon his legal action against the German comedian Jan Böhmermann, who recited a poem on German TV earlier this year suggesting that the Turkish leader engaged in bestiality and watched child pornography.

The poem prompted Erdoğan to file a complaint with German prosecutors that he had been insulted. Members of her own cabinet criticised the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for acceding to the request from Ankara to prosecute the comedian.

In May, Boris Johnson, now the British foreign secretary, won a competition organised by the Spectator for writing a rude poem about Erdoğan.

The limerick, published by the magazine as a rebuff to Erdoğan’s bid to prosecute the German comedian, jokingly implies that he has sex with a goat.

Johnson, whose great-grandfather was Turkish, called it a scandal that a German court had granted an injunction to prevent Böhmermann repeating his skit.

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