ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A journalist for the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) was detained on Thursday for allegedly covering the story of two Kurdish men thrown out of a helicopter in September.
The arrest follows the imprisonment of several other MA journalists in recent months.
Zeynep Durgut and her colleague Azad Kaya, as well as Rojda Aydin and Derya Renwere, from the all-women outlet JinNews, were arrested on Thursday in the Kurdish-majority province of Sirnak in southeast Turkey, MA reported on Friday.
The journalists were held at police gunpoint at the entrance to the district, according to the agency. Durgut was handcuffed and taken to Sirnak provincial police department, while the others were “insulted by police” before being released.
MA claimed that Durgut was detained due to her coverage of an incident in Van province where two Kurdish villagers were thrown out of a helicopter by Turkish security forces during an operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on September 11.
One villager Servet Turgut, died of his injuries on September 30.
Correspondents from MA and JinNews have previously been arrested over their coverage of the incident, imprisoned in October for "reporting subversive social events.”
MA’s office in Van was raided and their equipment and materials were seized, it added on Friday.
The International Press Institute (IPI) and Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) condemned the detentions, calling for Durgut’s “immediate” release and “an end to state intimidation.”
“Turkish authorities must cease detaining journalists at the Mezopotamya News Agency, and let them work freely and safely,” Gulnoza Said, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) Europe and Central Asia program coordinator said in November following the arrest of MA reporter Dindar Karatas.
Turkey is the world’s second-biggest jailer of journalists, according to the CPJ, putting 37 behind bars this year.
.webp&w=3840&q=75)
.png&w=3840&q=75)