Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke) said on Wednesday that Turkish police had detained a delegation of 16 German activists and journalists in southeastern Turkey who had traveled to the region in solidarity with Syrian Kurds, calling for their immediate release, Turkish Minute reported.
In a statement posted on its website the Left Party said the group had traveled to the predominantly Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey to observe protests linked to recent developments in Syria, draw attention to the worsening humanitarian situation in northern and eastern Syria and document alleged human rights violations.
The detentions come amid renewed violence in northeastern Syria. Syrian government forces launched an operation on January 6 that pushed into areas long held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), sparking weeks of clashes.
In response, protests have recently erupted in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast. Anger has grown as the Syrian government continues its offensive against Kurdish-led forces, raising tensions in several towns on the Turkish-Syrian border.
A ceasefire and integration plan announced in mid-January was intended to bring the SDF’s military and civilian structures under the Syrian state, but subsequent reports have pointed to renewed fighting and deep disagreements over how the deal would be implemented.
Among the detainees, according to the Left Party, is a representative of Linksjugend Solid, its youth wing, as well as a member of the party’s organization in the German state of Lower Saxony.
Cansu Özdemir, foreign policy spokeswoman for the Left Party parliamentary group in the German parliament, described the detentions as “a serious attack on press freedom, fundamental political rights and civil society engagement” and urged Germany’s Foreign Ministry to intervene.
“The Foreign Ministry must immediately get involved and demand the release of those affected,” Özdemir said, adding that Berlin should send a clear political signal condemning arbitrary arrests and restrictions on freedom of expression in Turkey.
Jan van Aken, co-chair of Die Linke and a member of the German parliament, said it was “unacceptable” that German citizens were being held for political and journalistic work and called on the German Embassy to provide consular support.
The detentions also come amid a protest ban imposed earlier this week in the border province of Mardin. The ban on gatherings in Mardin is in place until Saturday evening.
The Left Party also condemned Turkish authorities for stopping a civil society convoy known as the “People’s Caravan” at the border and preventing it from entering the area.
The party’s statement said border police confiscated participants’ passports, prompting protests against what organizers described as arbitrary restrictions on movement.
Maria Lara Moubarak, federal spokesperson for Linksjugend Solid, said the detentions were aimed not only at individuals but at international solidarity efforts with Kurds and demanded the safe and immediate release of all those detained.
The Association of Liberal Lawyers (ÖHD), a Turkey-based lawyers’ organization, said the detainees were being held at Turkey’s migration authority but that lawyers have so far been denied access.
Lawyer Dilan Koç, a member of the ÖHD, said no official reason had been provided for the detentions and that it was unclear if the 16 German citizens had been questioned.
Koç said it was possible the detainees could be transferred to İstanbul, where they might be asked to leave the country voluntarily or face deportation orders.
She warned that such measures could also result in permanent bans on re-entering Turkey.
Turkish authorities have not publicly commented on the detentions.
Turkey, the main foreign backer of Syria’s transitional authorities since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024, has openly supported Damascus’s push to dismantle Kurdish-led self-rule along its border. Ankara views the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it designates as a terrorist organization.
Over the past years, the arrests of German citizens in Turkey on what Berlin has described as political grounds, including journalists Deniz Yücel and Meşale Tolu, have triggered serious diplomatic crises between the two NATO allies.
The cases prompted Germany’s Foreign Ministry to issue travel warnings for German citizens visiting Turkey, cautioning that travelers could face arbitrary detention, including on terrorism-related accusations or alleged links to outlawed groups.
According to an August report by the German newspaper Tagesspiegel, citing a German government response to a parliamentary question from Left Party lawmaker Gökay Akbulut, 144 German citizens are currently either imprisoned in Turkey or barred from leaving the country.
The Foreign Ministry said the figure includes 75 Germans held in Turkish prisons, most facing charges related to violent, drug or sexual offenses. Nine are accused of violating Turkey’s counterterrorism laws, which critics say have been applied broadly and can criminalize forms of expression permitted in Germany and the European Union.
