Journalists Safiye Alağaş and Aziz Oruç, who work for Kurdish-focused outlets Jin News and Mezopotamya Agency respectively, were arrested over several witness testimonies, some of which were obtained almost a decade ago, Halk TV reported on Saturday citing court documents it obtained.
Some of the witnesses were captured members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), while others’ identities were withheld. Most of the testimonies were given in 2018 and 2019, but at least one was from 2013, Halk TV said.
The testimonies included general information on journalism and media activity being “important” for PKK, an armed group that has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for some four decades and is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, but there was no specific information on the journalists who were arrested, it said.
One secret witness statement reads as follows:
“The media and publishing sphere works under the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Institutions Coordination. PKK propaganda is produced via distribution of newspapers and various journals that have terroristic content such as Özgür Gündem and Gündem, facilitating new members joining the group.”
Another witness said Kurdish media organisations “incite the people to hatred against the state, while a third said in 2013 that Kurdish media organisations Dicle News Agency, Sterk TV, Rojaciwan, Firat News and Besta Nuçe were included in the KCK Media Committee.
The KCK is an umbrella organisation that the PKK is also a part of.
The prosecutor’s petition demanding the journalists’ arrest cited a former PKK member who said he “saw journalists visit from Europe to do interviews with top PKK officials” while he was in Qandil, the mountainous region in Northern Iraq where the PKK has its main base and headquarters.
The petition also includes NGOs and advocacy groups Alağaş is a member of, among them the Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association (İHD), the Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG), and the now-shuttered Free Journalists Association.
The same testimonies were also included in the petition for Oruç’s arrest. The court ruling for his remand in custody stated in its reasoning that Oruç was “conducting regular and continuous activities as part of the organisation’s structure”.
Oruç and Alağaş were among the 16 journalists who were arrested on Wednesday, following eight days in police custody. The pair was detained together with 19 other Kurdish journalists and media workers on June 8. Four of the detainees have been released on parole, while one was released without condition. All continue to face charges of terrorism over their journalistic activities.
During questioning at the prosecutor’s office, the journalists were asked why they reported on Nudem Durak, a jailed Kurdish musician for whom British rock music legend Roger Waters is spearheading a campaign, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
One of the journalists was asked why he produced a series on families who had their loved ones forcibly disappeared by elements of the Turkish armed forces during the 1990s, the height of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict.
The “terrorist organisation documents and digital material” cited in the prosecutor’s petition include photos of journalists who were killed during the 1990s, and the photographers’ cameras, Kurdish journalist Gökhan Altay said in a tweet.
Ahval