Mesopotamia Women Journalists Platform (MKGP), Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) and DISK/Basın-Iş will hold a press conference to mark the first month of detention of 16 journalists arrested on 16 June in Diyarbakır. The meeting will be made today at 4pm in front of Süreyya Opera House in Kadıköy.

Background

On 8 June, 22 people, 20 of them journalists, including Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) co-chair Serdar Altan, Xwebûn's Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Ali Ertaş and JINNEWS News Director Safiye Alagaş, were detained in Diyarbakır on 8 June. Of the 22 people detained for 8 days, JINNEWS Director Safiye Alagaş, DFG Co-chair Serdar Altan, MA Editor Aziz Oruç, Xwebûn Editorial Manager Mehmet Ali Ertaş, journalists Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Ömer Çelik, Mazlum Doğan Güler, İbrahim Koyuncu, Neşe Toprak, Elif Üngür, Abdurrahman Öncü, Suat Doğuhan, Remziye Temel, Ramazan Geciken, Lezgin Akdeniz and Mehmet Şahin were sent to prison on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organization".

Journalistic activities such as the programmes they presented, the news they wrote, and the phone calls they made with news sources were cited as the reason for their arrest.