Turkish courts on Thursday ordered the release of seven journalists, including an Agence France-Presse photographer, held for covering the worst protests to grip the country in decades, NGOs and a lawyer said.
The move came during a lull in the week-long protests that have swept across Turkey since the March 19 detention and subsequent jailing of İstanbul’s popular opposition mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu, 53, is widely seen as the main political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Large crowds took to the streets daily, defying protest bans in Turkey’s three largest cities, with the nightly gatherings often descending into running battles with riot police.
In pre-dawn raids on Monday, police rounded up 11 Turkish journalists who had been covering the protests, eight in İstanbul and three in İzmir, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgül.
On Tuesday, an İstanbul court remanded him and six others in custody on charges of “taking part in illegal rallies and marches.”
The move sparked sharp condemnation from rights groups and Paris-based international news agency AFP.
But on Thursday, the court ordered all seven to be released from custody, the MLSA rights group said.
Akgül, 35, was due to leave jail later in the day, his lawyer said.
He said it was unclear whether Akgül was being granted conditional release or if the charges were being dropped.
In addition to Akgül, the court ruled to release Now Haber reporter Ali Onur Tosun, photojournalists Bülent Kılıç and Kurtuluş Arı, who works for the İstanbul Municipality, and journalists Zeynep Kuray and Hayri Tunç.
More protests planned
AFP chief executive and chairman Fabrice Fries had condemned his imprisonment as “unacceptable”, demanding he be swiftly freed as he was “not part of the protest” and only covering it as a journalist.
“Yasin Akgül’s release is welcome and constitutes redress for a monumental injustice,” Erol Önderoğlu of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) told AFP on Thursday.
“We demand the release of all other journalists who have been deprived of their freedom due to grossly unjust treatment,” he said.
Of the four others — none of whom were jailed — two were freed and two others remained in detention in the western coastal city of Izmir, Turkey’s Journalists’ Union said.
The arrests sparked international condemnation, including from the United Nations.
RSF denounced the move as “scandalous” and the Turkish Photojournalists Union damned it as “unlawful, unconscionable and unacceptable.”
By Tuesday afternoon, police had arrested 1,418 people, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said, warning there would be “no concessions” for those who “terrorize the streets.”
Since then, there has been no further update on the numbers detained.
Students had again hit the streets on Wednesday, rallying outside İstanbul University in Turkey’s biggest city and outside Ankara University in the capital.
As in previous days, many covered their faces with scarves or masks to avoid being identified by the police.
‘More of us than them’
They were gearing up for fresh demonstrations on Thursday, with organizers in İstanbul calling for a new protest march at 6:30 pm (1530 GMT).
“Mum, don’t be afraid. There’s more of us than them,” read one sign on Wednesday.
That was the first night there was no mass rally called by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), whose next major gathering is planned for Saturday.
“The pressures exerted on members of the opposition have reached an alarming level,” said one robed lecturer in Ankara, who did not give his name.
“In the same way, government pressure on universities, which has been going on for years, has become even worse with recent developments.”
CHP leader Özgür Özel said the crackdown would only strengthen the protest movement.
“Our numbers won’t decrease with the detentions and arrests. We will grow and grow!” he warned.
The police roundups meant there was “no room left in İstanbul’s jails,” he added.
Erdoğan has repeatedly denounced the protests as “street terror” and has stepped up his attacks on Özel and the CHP.
© Agence France-Presse