Ten tobacco farmers have been arrested in the province of Adıyaman. The men are accused of taking part in unauthorized demonstrations and thus violating the law on assembly. They are also accused of publicly inciting people to commit crimes. The tobacco farmers had been in custody since last Friday after being detained earlier in province-wide police and gendarmerie raids. They are Abuzer Çalgan, Ali Yaprak, Cemal İlik, Ozan Özer, Bülent Göksu, Mehmet Yaylagül, Mehmet Neytullah Alagöz, Mustafa Sonkaya, Tugay Yıldız and Abdurrahman Özbayrak. Six other tobacco farmers were released by the 2nd Criminal Division of Adıyaman Magistrate's Court only upon strict reporting requirements. In total, around fifty farmers were temporarily detained during the raids on Friday.

The background to the uprising of tobacco farmers in northern Kurdistan is a provision of the Anti-Smuggling Law No. 5607, which came into force on July 1, making tobacco cultivation and sales subject to licensing. Tobacco farmers and traders who fail to obtain a license from the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are subject to imprisonment for a minimum of three years to a maximum of six years and fines ranging from TL 5,000 to TL 50,000. If the license is obtained, tobacco may be grown legally, but farmers are still not allowed to trade the product freely on the market. Sales remain dependent on membership in a cooperative, which must consist of at least 250 members.

The tobacco farmers suspect that interests of the foreign tobacco industry are playing a role in the introduction of the law and are demanding that the regulation be withdrawn. In Adıyaman and the neighboring province of Malatya, some 450,000 people live on tobacco cultivation. They fear that the new regulation will cause them to lose their only means of livelihood and thus their existence.