Turkey has arrested Turkish photo-journalist Çağdaş Erdoğan on Wednesday after 12 days of detention due to the photographs he has taken and the news stories he has written for international media outlets. Photo-journalist Erdoğan was detained on September 2 as he was taking photograph near Fenerbahçe Stadium in Kadıköy district of İstanbul.
Erdoğan was arrested and sent to prison by a court in İstanbul’s infamous Çağlayan Courthouse. The court has charged Erdoğan on taking photograph of a building of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MİT).
Following the arrest of Çağdaş Erdoğan, 140journos, which is among the media outlets that he has been working for, has released a written statement and said that he has worked for Associated Press, Agence France Press, Getty Images, New York Times, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Politico, Bloomberg, BBC, BBC Türkçe and Buzfeed beside of 140journos.
It was also reminded by 140journos that Çağdaş Erdoğan was showed in the list of “ones to watch” by British Journal of Photography at the beginning of this year and he is a photo-journalist known by international media.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) has showed that 283 journalists and media workers are now in jails as of August 18, 2017, most in pre-trial detention languishing in notorious Turkish prisons without even a conviction. Of those in Turkish prisons, 258 are arrested pending trial, only 25 journalists remain convicted and serving time in Turkish prisons. An outstanding detention warrants remain for 135 journalists who live in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the movement, the government also closed down more than 180 media outlets after the controversial coup attempt. Turkey’s Contemporary Journalists’ Association (ÇGD) recently announced that more than 900 press cards were cancelled.
