Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) Co-chair Serdar Altan, Xwebûn Newspaper Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Ali Ertaş, JINNEWS Director Safiye Alagaş, JINNEWS editor Gülşen Koçuk, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) editor Aziz Oruç, journalists Ömer Çelik, Suat Doğuhan, Ramazan Geciken, Esmer Tunç, Neşe Toprak, Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Mazlum Güler, Mehmet Şahin, Elif Üngür, İbrahim Koyuncu, Remziye Temel, Mehmet Yalçın, Abdurrahman Öncü, Lezgin Akdeniz and Kadir Bayram and  the citizens Feynaz Koçuk and İhsan Ergülen, who were detained on June 8 as part of the investigations carried out by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, were refered to the court on june 15 after 8 days of detention. Esmer Tunç, Mehmet Yalçın, Kadir Bayram, Feynaz Koçuk and İhsan Ergülen were released on condition of judicial control, after the statement that continued until the morning of June 16. Another 16 journalists were arrested on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organisation".
 
Resul Temur, one of the attorneys of the journalists, spoke about the investigation and the accusations.

2 SEPARATE INVESTIGATIONS
 
Stating that JINNEWS Director Safiye Alagaş and 21 other people were detained as part of separate investigations, attorney Temur said: "During the detention, 22 people were not given any information about what they were accused of. The objections made by the attorneys against this situation were also inconclusive, for this reason, the attorneys who follow the detention are not given the opportunity to apply effectively. The illegal proceedings against the journalists continued during their referral to the courthouse. The investigation prosecutor said that he would keep the journalists in the detention vehicles until their statements were finished. Upon the reaction of the attorneys, the journalists were taken off the buses and taken into the courthouse."

THE QUESTIONS WERE ASKED

Stating that the prosecutor restricted both journalists and attorneys to express themselves during the statement, Temur said: "That questions were mainly asked to journalists about the news they made, the programs, the content and language of the programs, and how the contents of these programs were determined. All of these questions are actually the issues that journalists will take as a basis while carrying out their journalistic activity; therefore, they are not open to intervention. If there is an intervention, it will be made-up news and journalism. One of the main purposes of the investigation is this method of punishment.”

THE JUDIFICATION OF THEIR ARRESTS IS WITNESS STATEMENTS

Noting that his clients had the investigation file after the statements, Temur said: "The kind of the questions changed during the judgement phase. The judgeship began to ask the journalists about some of the statements previously given by some witnesses that were not related to the investigation questioning. The journalists jointly stated that their statements were not related to them and that their statements were not taken within the scope of this file. But despite this, we saw that only these statements were included in the reason for their arrest."

ACTIVITIES WERE DISTORTED
 
Stating that the basic sentence of their arrests was "acting under the guise of a TV and radio channel, press and broadcasting organisation...", Temur said: "The judiciary resorted to deception and lies, as it always does. Along with irrelevant witness statements distorting their journalistic activity, the judiciary  began to paint a picture like, 'We are not prosecuted for their journalistic activity, those who are prosecuted are actually being prosecuted for membership of a terrorist organisation. There is no causal link between the witness statements and the Kurdish journalists on trial in the file. Besides, none of the channels in the open statements in question are broadcasting in Turkey, so Kurdish journalists were arrested based on this justification, with a forced comment."

THE PURPOSE OF ARRESTS

Underlining that the Kurdish media has always been subject to the pressure of the government, Temur said: "With the arrest of journalists, the Kurds are tried to prevent them from setting their own agenda, discussing their agenda and discussing the Kurdish question. The aim of the arrests is to prevent the Kurds' right to receive information and to act entirely on the agendas carried out in state policy. There is also a disinformation law brought to the Parliament. When considered together with this law, it is clear that there is an arrest aimed at suppressing the institutions and organisations that produce content."

MA / Müjdat Can