Police in Istanbul detained Vedat Demir, a media professor and a former columnist for the shuttered daily Yarına Bakış, on July 24, 2016, as part of a sweeping purge of journalists and others suspected of following exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, according to the Internet newspaper Sol. The government accuses Gülen of maintaining a terrorist organization and “parallel state structure” (or FETÖ/PDY, as the government calls it) within Turkey that it blames for orchestrating a failed July 15, 2016, military coup.
Istanbul’s 10th Court of Penal Peace on August 3, 2016, arraigned the journalist on charges of “being a member of an armed terrorist organization,” according to the daily newspaper Habertürk.
Yarına Bakış was one of more than 100 newspapers, broadcasters, news agencies, and magazines the government closed by emergency decree on July 27, 2016, saying they were FETÖ/PDY mouthpieces. Dozens of journalists who worked at the shuttered media outlets have since been jailed on terrorism charges based on their past employment, CPJ research shows.
As of late 2016, CPJ had been unable to reach the journalist’s lawyer. Press reports did not indicate where he was jailed, or whether a date had been set for his trial.