Turkey arrests prominent TV journalist over criticizing Ocalan's isolation

ANKARA — Turkish authorities arrested on Tuesday prominent Turkish journalist Merdan Yanardag over criticizing the government-imposed isolation on imprisoned Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The arrest was made following his detention by Turkish police on Monday, and an arrest warrant issued by the Istanbul court. 

Speaking in a live broadcast last week, Yanardag, editor-in-chief of pro-opposition Tele1 TV channel, criticized the yearslong isolation imposed on Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who has been serving a life sentence on Imrali island in the Marmara Sea, south of Istanbul, since 1999. “There is no legal ground for the isolation imposed on Abdullah Ocalan. This should be lifted. He is not even allowed to see his family members or his lawyers,” Yanardag said.

Turkish authorities have been denying the militant leader’s request to see his lawyers and relatives since 2021. The Turkish government held direct talks with Ocalan and the PKK as part of a peace process initiated in 2009, in a bid to end the country’s Kurdish conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. The talks collapsed in 2015. The PKK, which has been waging an armed conflict against the Turkish state since 1984, is designated as a terrorist group by Ankara and the majority of Western capitals.

After the live broadcast, Yanardag immediately came under fire from Turkey’s pro-government circles who lashed out on social media and in TV broadcasts, alleging that the journalist was praising Ocalan. Yanardag was detained over his remarks after a Turkish prosecutor charged him with “terror propaganda.” The journalist defended himself saying his quotes were distorted. 

His arrest marks a new blow to Turkey’s already poor human rights record, drawing reaction from journalism organizations and civic groups. Erol Onderoglu, the Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders, slammed the move on Twitter on Tuesday. “Journalists in Turkey have become unable to write or say anything; they face detention as a standard treatment,” he wrote.  

In remarks to Al-Monitor later on Tuesday, Onderoglu described the decision as a fresh example of the country’s “arbitrary political arrests” that aim to silence the entire public opinion. “Unfortunately, the arrest of Merdan Yanardag shows that Turkey has yet to put an end to arbitrary political arrests of journalists — a chronic problem of Turkey and the Turkish judiciary,” he said. 

The election victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party in the country’s general elections last month has led to a climate in which many journalists from local reporters to media executives feel threatened, Onderoglu added.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia associate director, said Yanardag’s arrest was unacceptable. “This is part of a campaign to silence oppositional and critical media and in the post election period to target the remaining critical news broadcasters of whom there are so few,” she told Al-Monitor, adding “Yanardag must be released immediately and the investigation against him dropped.”

Turkey is among the top jailers of journalists worldwide. A report by the New York-based watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists released in December listed Turkey as the world’s fourth top jailer of journalists after Iran, China and Myanmar. The number of journalists imprisoned, which stood at 40 according to the CPJ as of late 2022, increased significantly in the lead up to the last month's general elections as part of the government's crackdown aiming to silence the dissent ahead of the critical polls.