DİYARBAKIR -  Serdar Altan, Aziz Oruç and Ömer Çelik, among the 20 journalist under police custody, shared a message via their lawyers and said: "We will continue to write."

 

Dicle Fırat Journalists' Association Co-chair Serdar Altan, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) editor Aziz Oruç and journalist Ömer Çelik who were detained in Diyarbakır on June 8 with raids on their homes, sent a message vie their lawyers from Media and Legal Studies Association (MLSA).

 

ALTAN: WE ARE JOURNALISTS 

 

Serdar Altan said the following in his message regarding their detention, "Economic crisis is going worse. Military operations are being planned. There is an election coming. Journalists are all over these issues, writing about all. These all can be the reasons for our detentions. Last week journalist Dicle Müftüoğlu was detained and was held under police custody for 4 days. She was detained because she was in solidarity with her colleagues in prison. They detained us right after she was released. Who knows what we will be accused of. However, we are journalists. We will continue to do our job and we will continue to be in solidarity with our imprisoned colleagues."

 

'EVEN THE POLICE DON'T KNOW WHY WE ARE DETAINED'

 

Underlining they don't know why they were detained, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) editor Aziz Oruç said: "They issued warrants for our detention and extended the period of detention to 4 days. This is all we know. We asked the police why we were detained but even the police don't know why we are here. They just say that there were warrants for our detentions. The fact that all the harddisks in our offices were confiscated and all of the detainees are journalists, tells us why we are detained. Because we are journalists. They are invesitgating our activities as journalists. I am doing street interviews for a long time now. All of them are published. They can't find any elements of a crime in these interviews. This is why they confiscated our harddisks. They will try to find a crime element. A futile effort. It is pointless both in terms of these detention and trying to silence journalists."

 

'WE WERE DETAINED WITH POLITICAL MOTIVATION'

 

Emphasizing that they were detained with political motivation, journalist Ömer Çelik said the following in his message: "They are trying to criminalize journalism. They are trying to make journalism a line of work that one can encounter dangers any time. We have been here for 3 days and we don't know why we are detained. I believe they don't know either. This is why they extend the period of detention. To dig out something they can accuse us with. The only thing they can find is the reports we wrote which has our signatures under them."