MEDİNE MAMEDOĞLU

 

Amed (Diyarbakır)- Last morning, police raided many houses in 21 cities across Türkiye as part of an investigation launched by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. More than 100 people, including journalists, lawyers, politicians, artists and activists, were detained. Names of the journalists detained yesterday are: Mesopotamia Agency (MA) editor Abdurrahman Gök; MA reporters Ahmet Kanbal and Mehmet Şah Oruç; Jinnews reporter Beritan Canözer;  Osman Akın, editor-in-chief of the Yeni Yaşam Newspaper; Kadri Esen, publisher of the Kurdish newspaper Xwebûn; Mikail Barut, Mehmet Yalçın, Beritan Canözer, Salih Keleş, Remzi Akkaya and Arif Akkaya.

The charges against the detained people are still unknown due to a confidentiality order covering the investigation and a 24-hour restriction on access to lawyers for those detained. For a year, three operations have been conducted against journalists in Türkiye.

 

‘Pre-election detentions are not a coincidence’

 “The day is the day of fighting for the truth,” Nişmiye Güler, one of the editors of Jinnews, said, “The pre-election detentions are not a coincidence. The detained journalists reported the support to the Green Left Party in Kurdish cities. They were targeted because their journalistic activities disturbed the government.”

‘The aim is to intimidate us’

 Recalling that three detention operations have been conducted against journalists and press outlets in the last year, Nişmiye Güler said, “Our 26 colleagues have been imprisoned pending trial for about 10 months. While they have not been able to stand trial, a detention operation was conducted against other journalists. Our colleagues face trial just for their journalistic activities. The aim of the detention operations against journalists is to intimidate us. We would like to underline that these efforts are useless. They should know very well that we are journalists who follow in the footsteps of Gurbetelli Ersöz, Nujiyan Erhan, Deniz Fırat and Nagihan Akarsel. They followed the truth to the end and we will follow the truth no matter what happens. Detentions cannot intimidate us.”

 ‘They want to achieve success in the elections by detaining opposition figures’

 Noting that the detained lawyers, theater artists and journalists face terrorism charges, Nişmiye Güler said, “The AKP-MHP government want to achieve success in the elections by detaining opposition figures over terrorism charges but they will lose because everyone knows that the journalists report the truth, the lawyers stand with the people seeking justice and the theater artists stand against the policy of assimilation by taking to the stage with their mother language and culture. Instead of trying to win the elections by detaining opposition figures, the government must see the anger of the people and those who say 'where is the state? There is no state.’ in the earthquake-affected cities. The government should understand that they cannot silence people anymore.”

 ‘We will keep reporting the truth’

Calling on everyone to protest the truth, Nişmiye Güler said, “The day is the day of fighting for the truth. We will keep reporting the truth even if we do not have any equipment. We will keep being the voices of the people. Our imprisoned colleagues and detained colleagues will be released sooner or later. We will be their voices until they are released.”