Following the earlier arrests, hundreds of protestors demonstrated in front of the Istanbul office of the Cumhurriyet newspaper in solidarity with the journalists.
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Two prominent Turkish journalists have been arrested on charges of espionage and aiding an armed terrorist organization, according to a news report.
The newspaper where the duo worked had published photographs and video footage purportedly showing trucks belonging to the Turkish intelligence service MIT.
Meanwhile, the European and International Federations of Journalists, the EFJ and the IFJ, on Friday urged Turkey to immediately release the two journalists, who are now being held in Istanbul. Reporters With out Borders rates the country 149th of 180 countries in its 2015 Press Freedom Index. This case also raises serious questions about the independence of the judiciary in Turkey.
In May, the newspaper published alleged photos of Turkish intelligence trucks supplying arms to Syrian rebels, the Associated Press reported. President Erdogan vowed revenge against those behind the story, saying they would “pay a heavy price”. “This will ultimately strengthen Turkey’s democracy”, Mark Toner, deputy department spokesperson, said in a statement. The result enabled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to further secure his grasp on power.
“This dark operation aimed at covering the crimes that those trucks carried and the crimes which are continuing to be committed will not be successful”, she added.
“The government does not want any journalist to see what kind of a calamity they have involved Turkey in”, Turkish opposition member Baris Yarkadas was quoted. “We came here to show and to prove that governments can not engage in illegal activity and defend this”, Dundar said, according to the Turkish paper Today’s Zaman.
“We are accused of ‘spying.’ The president said [our action is] ‘treason.’ We are not traitors, spy, or heroes; we are journalists”. Turkey’s interior ministry, however, denied the allegations and said the trucks were in reality conveying humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in the war-torn country.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said that the charges represented yet another blow for press freedom in Turkey, where media critical of Erdogan have been targeted in a crackdown.
Their arrest also prompted a response from the US Embassy in Turkey.
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With the arrest of Dündar and Gül, the total number of Turkish journalists incarcerated behind bars has risen to 32.
