ANKARA - Lawyer of the arrested Kurdish journalists Sevin Kaya says that journalists were tortured in a way that completely violates human rights. “We will file a criminal complaint after visiting our clients and reaching to further findings of torture, including the arrest procedure,” Kaya said.

 

11 Kurdish journalists on early Tuesday morning were arrested during simultaneous home raids in various cities of Turkey.

 

Many of our agency’s and Jin News’ reporters, including Deniz Nazlim, Selman Güzelyüz, eniz Nazlım, Selman Güzelyüz, Zemo Ağgöz, Berivan Altan, Hakan Yalçın, Emrullah Acar, Ceylan Şahinli, Habibe Eren and Öznur Değer, as well as our Editor-in-Chief Diren Yurtsever are among those who are kept in police custody for two days. Our former intern journalist Mehmet Günhan was also arrested from his home later on Tuesday afternoon.

 

As the Kurdish journalists were handcuffed from behind, the footages released by the Ankara Police Department showed that police officers were pushing on their necks, trying to make their heads face down. 

 

In the meantime, the prosecutor leading the investigation prolonged the detention period of the journalists for one extra day in addition to the confidentiality order on the file.

 

“We learned that there was a confidentiality order on the file. There was a decision to limit the lawyers to further examine the (investigation) file,” Sevin Kaya, lawyer of the arrested journalists told MA.

 

PROSECUTOR REFUSED TO SEE LAWYERS

 

Kaya stated that as soon as they learned there was a search in the Ankara bureaus of the Mesopotamia Agency and Jin News, they got involved in the searches and to the whole process.

 

“We went to the courthouse to learn the grounds of arrests. When we demanded to see the prosecutor, the prosecutor refused this,” she said.

 

Not only they were refused to see the prosecutor, many documents were not given to the lawyers in contrary to the laws, Kaya said. 

 

“There are still some documents that the lawyers can obtain despite the confidentiality order; for example, search reports, confiscation records, detention documents, etc. We have demanded these, but they did not provide these to us as well.

 

THE NEW-BORN NEEDS HER MOTHER TO BE FREED

 

Kaya stressed ont he gravity of the special condition of one of the arrested journalists, Zemo Aggoz.

“Our friend Zemo (Aggoz) has a 45-day-old baby. In this regard, we demanded to prosecutor to speed up the testimony procedures of Zemo and to free her as soon as possible,” she said.

 

But Turkish judiciary authorities left this demand unreplied, she informed.

 

As Kaya and other lawyers rushed to the anti-terror department of Ankara police where the journalists are kept in custody, they were told, “There was a ban on lawyer visits there. There is a ban on lawyer visit, dated today, for 24 hours.”

 

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST TORTURE

 

Kaya criticised the way she and her colleagues learned the grounds of arrests of their clients.

 

“Actually, we have learnt the grounds of arrest by the statement of the Police department. As the lawyers of our arrested clients, we were not able to reach any information whatsoever on the investigation file, because of the confidentiality order. But we were able to reach information through the news on the media,” she said.

 

“Later on we have seen the video images published by the police. These videos showed us how our clients were subjected to torture,” Kaya added.

 

Kaya stressed that the way that journalists were arrested by the police who “pushed their heads down, with their hands handcuffed from behind” was a complete violation of human rights that requires legal action:

 

“After we visit our clients and reach further findings of torture, we will file a criminal complaint against the torture, including the procedure of arrest.”

 

JOURNALISM CONSIDERED A CRIME

 

Sharing her evaluations on the political motives behind the arrest of 11 Kurdish journalists, Kaya said, “Actually, the free press has always been a target in this country. The fact that our friends were arrested like this based on their journalistic work, shows that the mind of the state remains unchanged.”

 

Kaya explained that journalists were arrested based on their “news reports” as a result of the “disinformation law” and censorship on media.

 

Turkey's parliament last week adopted a “disinformation law”, mostly called by the opposition as a “censorship law”, proposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself that would jail journalists and social media users for up to three years for spreading "disinformation" amid growing concern for free speech ahead of the country’s most critical election.

 

“They try to leave people uninformed,” Kaya concluded.

 

“Those who are seeking to silence the opposition are also trying to silence the media, and completely suppress society. The grounds of these arrests can be summarised like this.”