Turkish police forbid public statement, detain three journalists

A public statement in support of 16 Kurdish journalists who have remained in custody since 8 June was forbidden by the Turkish police on Tuesday. Three journalists were briefly detained, only to be released in the evening.

As the members of two journalists' associations wanted to read out a statement in Ankara to protest the incarceration of their colleagues, they were met with the obstruction of the police.

The police also encircled the area and blocked the roads to shut out reporters, using physical force against them as they tried to pass through.

The reporters protested the behavior of the police who pushed them around and prevented some journalists from setting up cameras to record.

In a video report of Jin News, one woman reporter was heard shouting at the police, "Mafia! You are all mafia!"

Journalists Deniz Nazlim, Yildiz Tar and Sibel Yukler, who had earlier traveled on 18 June to Turkey's Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir to express their support for the jailed journalists, were taken into custody. The three journalists were released later in the evening.