A Turkish court has accepted an indictment of 28 Kurds, including three journalists, over their participation in a 2024 anti-war vigil in the southeastern district of Silopi, the pro-Kurdish Jin News Agency reported.
The indictment, filed by the Silopi Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, accuses the group of “preventing public officials from performing their duty” and “violating Turkey’s law on meetings and demonstrations.”
Those charged include Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) reporter Zeynep Durgut, Jin News reporter Derya Ren and Ajansa Welat reporter Mahmut Altıntaş. The first hearing is scheduled for May 13.
The case stems from an attempt by the Peace Mothers to hold a three-day vigil in Silopi, Şırnak province, on October 15, 2024, to protest Turkish airstrikes on Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Police blocked the vigil and detained 28 people, all of whom were later released.
The Peace Mothers is a civil society initiative made up of Kurdish women whose children were killed in a decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which launched an armed insurgency in 1984 and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
All three journalists have previously faced prosecutions or convictions on terrorism-related charges.
Ren was sentenced to more than four years in prison on charges of “aiding a terrorist organization” in 2022 and was released in 2024.
Altıntaş was previously handed down a suspended sentence of one year, six months in February 2025 after being convicted of “spreading terrorist propaganda” in his social media posts
Durgut was among five journalists indicted on charges of membership in a terrorist organization for reporting on the alleged torture of two Kurdish villagers thrown from a military helicopter in southeastern Turkey in 2020. She was acquitted in January 2022, detained again a month later and released after four days.
Turkish authorities have frequently used terrorism-related charges to prosecute journalists, activists and opposition figures. Press freedom groups have criticized the broad interpretation of counterterrorism laws in Turkey, saying they are often used to silence dissent and stifle independent journalism.
