A Turkish prosecutor has issued a fourth indictment against photojournalist Abdurrahman Gök, who took pictures of a Kurdish university student being shot to death by police in 2017, on terrorism charges, the Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) reported.
The latest indictment, filed by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, reportedly relies on a secret witness statement from October 2022. It accuses Gök of membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to the witness, Gök allegedly traveled to the Syrian region of Kobani during an assault by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and produced reporting “aligned with the terrorist organization’s ideology,” referring to the PKK. The secret witness also claimed that Gök’s participation in public statements and events supporting detained journalists was done “in his capacity as a representative of the terrorist organization.”
ISIS besieged Kobani in northern Syria from October 2014 to March 2015. Kurdish-led forces, now known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), fought ISIS with support from the US. Turkey considers the SDF to be an offshoot of the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Syrian Kurdish officials insist the SDF is independent.
The 5th High Criminal Court in Diyarbakır accepted the indictment and merged it with an ongoing case in which Gök is being tried for “membership in a terrorist organization” and “disseminating terrorist propaganda.” The next hearing is scheduled for November 25.
Gök first came under scrutiny after photographing the shooting of university student Kemal Kurkut by a police officer during Newroz, the Kurdish new year, celebrations in Diyarbakır in March 2017. His photographs were crucial in refuting the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office’s claim that Kurkut had been shot on suspicion of wearing a suicide vest.
The police officer who shot Kurkut was acquitted by the Diyarbakır 7th High Criminal Court, which ruled in January 2023 that there were “no grounds for punishment.”
Gök himself became the target of subsequent legal proceedings shortly afterward. In April 2017 he was detained on accusations of “membership in a terrorist organization” and “disseminating terrorist propaganda” and sentenced to one year, six months in prison on the propaganda charges, a verdict now under review at the Supreme Court of Appeals.
Detained again in October 2018 on similar charges, he faced an indictment in 2020 seeking up to 28 years in prison. He was detained for a third time in April 2023 on the same accusations and was released seven months later. Both trials are underway.
The Kurdish issue, a term prevalent in Turkey’s public discourse, refers to the demand for equal rights by the country’s Kurdish population and their struggle for recognition.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 28 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey. The country’s deteriorating media landscape was further pointed out in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), where it was ranked 159th out of 180 nations.
