ISTANBUL (AP) — Two journalists were detained in dawn raids in Istanbul early Friday as part of a crackdown on media workers covering Turkey’s largest protests in more than a decade, their outlets reported.
Elif Bayburt, who works for the Etkin News Agency, and Nisa Suda Demirel, from the Evrensel news website, were the latest to be arrested in early morning sweeps that have targeted political activists and trades’ unionists as well as journalists.
“Our reporter, Nisa Sude Demirel, was detained by the police who came to her house at around 6 a.m. this morning,” Evrensel said in a statement. “Demirel, who was following the (Istanbul City Hall) protests and the boycotts at the universities, was taken to the Istanbul Police Department’s Counter-Terrorism Branch office.”
The demonstrations began last week following the arrest of Istanbul’s opposition Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a key rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Imamoglu was jailed pending trial on corruption charges many see as politically motivated. The government insists the judiciary is independent and free of political interference.
Reporters Without Borders condemned the reporters’ arrests. “There is no end to the detentions of journalists,” its Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu said.
The Turkish Journalists’ Union called for the news media to be allowed to do its work and an “end to these unlawful detentions.”
Earlier this week, 11 journalists were detained in morning raids. Although initially jailed pending trial, they were freed Thursday but still face charges of “taking part in illegal rallies and marches.”
Turkey’s broadcasting authority issued a 10-day airwave ban on Sozcu TV on Thursday, as well as fines and program suspensions to other opposition channels. A reporter from the U.K.’s BBC was also deported Thursday.
Courthouses across Turkey are dealing with a spike in cases as a result of the protests. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Thursday that nearly 1,900 people had been arrested since March 19.
Anxious families have been gathering outside court buildings to await the fate of their loved ones, who police can hold for four days.
“The youth we call Generation Z are more likely to participate in these protests. They sense that something is wrong,” Savas Ozbek, whose daughter was detained Sunday, told ANKA News Agency outside Ankara Courthouse late Thursday.
Zeynep Ulger, who was waiting for news of her friend, said they were protesting for a “free, democratic country,” adding: “The only thing we have achieved in the face of this is being beaten by the police on the streets and being detained.”
Istanbul-based lawyer Arif Anil Ozturk, who represents many detained protesters, gave his insight into court proceedings.
“It is an unlawful process from beginning to end,” he told the Cumhuriyet newspaper. “There is no evidence, no footage. Children… are being treated like terrorists.”
Nightly Istanbul rallies organized by Imamoglu’s Republican People’s Party, or CHP, ended Tuesday. In other cities, and in Istanbul since the end of the CHP gatherings, largely peaceful protests have been more organic.
Police, however, have used tear gas, water cannon and plastic pellets to suppress demonstrations that have been banned in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
At the Middle East Technical University campus on the outskirts of the capital Ankara, nine students were detained early Friday, opposition politicians who visited the site said.
“Young people have set up tents inside (the campus). Officious administrators have evaluated this situation as a ‘threat’ and invited the police to the university to conduct an operation,” CHP Provincial Chairperson Umit Erkol said on social media.
Aylin Yaman, a CHP MP, said students were sitting on the grass and singing when police stormed the area at 2 am. “We object to the police entering here as if it were a dawn operation and creating an atmosphere of fear,” she said.
The Istanbul Bar Association announced that three lawyers had been among some 100 people arrest at a Thursday demonstration in the city’s Sisli district. Lawyers also said they had been kept waiting for hours outside police headquarters to gain access to detainees.
Following the overnight arrest of Imamoglu’s lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan, it was revealed Friday that he is accused of money-laundering. Imamoglu, in a social media post, said Pehlivan had been “detained on fictitious grounds.”
Turkey’s Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk, writing in several European newspapers, said events over the past 10 days represented “Erdogan’s strong-fisted, autocratic rule (at) a level we have not seen before.”
Following a meeting with Turkey’s foreign minister earlier in the week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described events in Turkey as “disturbing.” Speaking on a return flight from Suriname late Thursday, he said: “We are concerned, we don’t like to see the direction that’s going… Anytime you have instability on the ground you don’t like to see it.”
Imamoglu faces charges stemming from two investigations into the opposition-controlled Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality – a corruption case and one alleging support for terrorism.
The mayor has been confirmed as the CHP’s presidential candidate in an election currently scheduled for 2028 but which is likely to take place earlier. He has performed well in recent polls against Erdogan, and his election as mayor of Turkey’s largest city in 2019 was a major blow to the president.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Miami contributed to this report.
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