A court in Ankara has issued an arrest warrant against Kurdish book author Nezir Çakan. The chairman of the Kurdish writers' association "Komeleya Wêjekarên Kurd" was detained last Thursday in his apartment in Ergani district of Amed (Diyarbakir) and transferred to Ankara. He is accused of involvement in the Kobanê protests in the autumn of 2014.

The reason given for the arrest warrant was that Çakan was in danger of fleeing. He has already been transferred to the high security prison Sincan district of Ankara. The association "Komeleya Wêjekarên Kurd" sharply criticized the court's decision, saying; "The arrest of Nezir Çakan represents an encroachment on the freedom of thought, which violates fundamental rights.” The association demands the immediate release of the writer, who is, among other things, a member of the Kurdish PEN Center, which is part of the international writers' association PEN.

The "Kobanê investigation" launched by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office deals with the protests in Northern Kurdistan and Turkey during the ISIS attack on the city of Kobanê. In the course of these proceedings, more than twenty activists and politicians, including high-ranking representatives of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and its sister party DBP (Party of Democratic Regions), have been arrested since the beginning of October.