A Turkish court has charged two Vice News journalists and their assistant with “aiding a terrorist organization” and ordered them arrested pending trial. Their employer has called the charges “baseless and alarmingly false.”
Two British journalists, correspondent Jake Hanrahan and cameraman Philip Pendlebury, and their Turkey-based assistant were detained on Thursday while reporting from Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.
A court official said the court in Diyarbakir ordered them arrested on Monday. It was not immediately clear which organization the journalists are accused of aiding.
The three were detained in Diyarbakir's Baglar district where Kurdish youths frequently clash with security officials.
Vice News said in a statement that it condemned “the Turkish government's attempts to silence our reporters who have been providing vital coverage from the region.”
AP
