Turkey arrests five journalists working for Kurdish agencies
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish police on Friday morning arrested five journalists in Ankara working for the two Kurdish outlets of Jin News and Mezopotamya agency.
Jin News's editor Sibel Yukler, its reporters Duygu Erol and Habibe Eren, and Mezopotamya's Diren Yurtsever and Selman Guzelyuz were among the detained.
The all-women agency, Jin news said police told their staff that there was a complaint about them, without further elaboration.
Both news networks launched last month.
Progressive Journalists' Association, an Ankara-based NGO defending media workers and freedom condemned the arrests and accused the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of a concerted assault on freedom of the press.
"We are not surprised by the systematic pressure of the freedom of expression and press that has gained even more pace in recent years," read a statement on association's website.
The latest detentions followed a last week court ruling that sentenced the US daily Wall Street Journal's correspondent, Ayla Albayrak in absentia to two years and one month in prison over a report she penned in 2015.
Albayrak, a Turkish-Finnish dual citizen, was charged with "engaging in terrorist propaganda" in support of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in a report she had written about the urban conflict between government forces and Kurdish rebels in 2015.
A government crackdown on the press has seen the closure of over 150 media outlets under a state of emergency since last year's botched coup attempt against Erdogan's rule, according to Human Rights Watch and Freedom House.
There are over 160 journalists in prisons across Turkey, according to the Turkish Journalists’ Association.
Last month, Turkey's state regulatory body of media shut down the transmission of three Kurdistan Region-based news channels from the national satellite provider Turksat, among them Kurdistan 24, Rudaw and Waar TV the same day the people of Kurdistan's people went to a referendum on independence from Iraq.
A December 2016 report by the UN's Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye described the crackdown as "the government decimation of Kurdish media."
Editing by Ava Homa