DİYARBAKIR - Diyarbakır Type D Prison Disciplinary Board confiscated the letter that journalist Mehmet Ali Ertaş sent to his colleague, finding it "objectionable" on the grounds that he "continues his journalistic activities”.

 

The letters sent by 16 journalists who were detained in Diyarbakır on June 8 and arrested on June 16 are confiscated by the prison administration. After the letter sent by Ömer Çelik, the letter sent by Editor in Chief of the Xwebûn Newspaper Mehmet Ali Ertaş, was also found to be "objectionable" and was not sent to the recipient.

 

Before being transferred to Diyarbakır High Security Prison No. 1, Ertaş sent a letter in Kurdish to his colleague Eylem Akdağ from Diyarbakır Type D Prison.(?) The Prison's Reading Commission found the letter it translated into Turkish "objectionable". The letter was then sent to the Prison's Disciplinary Board. The board said not sending the letter to the recipient was justified and confiscated it.

 

Stating that Ertaş said Kurdish and Kurmanci was censored and that this statement is far from reality, the board said Ertaş was endangering the security of the prison, targeting prison officials and that they were not going to send the letter which aims for the communication of the members of the organisation.

 

In the decision, it was decided to keep the letter in the administration until the domestic and international legal remedies were exhausted.