Kurdish journalist arrested in Istanbul

A Kurdish journalist working for the Mezopotamya news agency was detained by police today while visiting a police station in Istanbul's Ferikoy district.

Ferhat Celik, who is also the grant holder of the news agency, was the subject of an arrest warrant for another investigation, he announced on Twitter.

"I was arrested at Ferikoy Police Station, where I was going to make a statement, because of a warrant against me in another investigation," Celik wrote on Twitter.

Celik will give a statement to the prosecutor's office at the Istanbul Courthouse later in the day.

Mezopotamya, a pro-Kurdish news website that has been blocked more than 20 times by Turkish authorities since its founding in 2017, publishes articles critical of the government about rights abuses in Turkey's Kurdish majority regions. Several of its reporters have been arrested or been sentenced to prison terms.