MESOPOTAMIA Agency reporter Zeynep Durgut was jailed today after she was one of four media workers held at gunpoint while covering news in Turkey’s largely Kurdish south-east.
Azad Kaya and Jinnews reporters Rojda Aydin and Derya Ren were travelling with Ms Durgut between Cizre and Sirnak when they were detained by security services on Thursday night.
The four were quizzed as part of investigations opened by the state after MA and Jin News exposed the Turkish military for allegedly throwing two Kurdish farmers, Servet Turgut and Osman Siban, from a helicopter during operations earlier this year.
Soldiers were said to have threatened to burn down a village in the Catak district of Van if they told anyone what had happened.
The journalists who broke the story, MA reporters Adnan Bilen and Cemil Ugur, Jinnews reporter Sehriban Abi and journalist Nazan Sala remain behind bars.
They have been charged with terror offences and stealing their own equipment including computers, cameras and recording devices.
Officials claimed there was also a warrant for the arrest of Ms Durgut.
She had recently been writing about tensions between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Kurdistan Workers Party in northern Iraq.
MA’s Van office was trashed in a raid today following the incident.
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Source: Morning Star Online
