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Police in the coastal town of Bodrum detained Ayşe Nazlı Ilıcak — a former commentator for the pro-opposition daily newspaper Özgür Düşünce and Can Erzincan TV who is better known by her pen name, Nazlı Ilıcak — on July 26, 2016, and transferred her to Istanbul for questioning as part of a sweeping purge of journalists and…
Police first arrested Altan, a well-known novelist and journalist, alongside his brother, the economics professor and columnist Mehmet Altan, on September 10, 2016, on suspicion they were followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen. The Turkish government accuses Gülen of maintaining a terrorist organization and "parallel state structure" within Turkey – FETÖ/PDY, as the government calls…
Police on December 29, 2016, detained Şık, an investigative journalist and a reporter for the opposition daily Cumhuriyet, on allegations of spreading terrorist propaganda on Twitter. Prosecutors questioned Şık about his tweets, three articles in Cumhuriyet, a public statement, and an interview, according to news reports. A court ruled that his case would be heard…
Police detained Murat Sabuncu, editor-in-chief of the pro-opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, in a raid of the newspaper’s main office in Istanbul on October 31, 2016, alongside at least 11 other staff members and board members of the foundation that publishes it. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Istanbul released an official statement soon after the raid, saying…
Ercan Gün, a news editor for Turkish Fox TV, was detained on July 29, 2016 on terrorism charges and for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to blame the Turkish military for the 2007 murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink. Gün was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2021. Police in Istanbul detained…
Police in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şanlıurfa on October 1, 2016, detained Sadık Demir-chairman of the board of Fırat Press Broadcast, which owns Radio Karacadağ. The government on September 30, 2016, had ordered the radio station closed by decree, using emergency powers it assumed after a failed July 2016 military coup, saying the station was…
A court in Hatay on July 27, 2017, ordered Erdoğan Alayumat, from online newspaper Dihaber, jailed pending trial on charges of “obtaining secret information of the Republic of Turkey for the means of political and military espionage,” his employer reported. Security forces detained Alayumat and his colleague, Nuri Akman, near the Syrian border in the…
Police detained Oruç, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), on July 4, 2016, while she was traveling in a car with her cousin and a driver who had picked them up while they were hitchhiking between the southeastern provinces of Diyarbakır and Batman, according to news reports citing DİHA. The reports said…
A Mardin court in March 2017 convicted and sentenced Zehra Doğan, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish, all-women Jin News Agency (JİNHA), to two years, nine months, and 22 days in prison on charges of "being a member of a [terrorist] organization" and "propagandizing for a [terrorist] organization," according to news reports. An appeals court upheld the…
Nedim Türfent, a Turkish reporter for the pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), has been detained since 2016. The journalist was sentenced to over eight years in prison, despite several prosecution witnesses recanting their testimonies in court and saying that police forced them to testify against Türfent. Police detained Türfent in the eastern province of Van…