Turkish authorities on Wednesday detained six journalists near the border in southeastern Turkey while they were covering a protest against the Syrian army’s offensive on Kurdish-held northeastern Syria, the Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) reported.
The journalists were detained in the Nusaybin district of Mardin province as police intervened when demonstrators began marching toward the Syrian border. Those taken into custody were DFG Co-chair Kesire Önel, Heval Önkol from the Mezopotamya News Agency and Pelşin Çetinkaya from the JIN News Agency, along with Ferhat Akıncı, Muhammet Ali Yılmaz and Barış Demircan.
Northeastern Syria is largely controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been a key US ally in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Ankara views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominate the SDF, as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has waged an armed insurgency against Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives, and the group is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, including the European Union and the United States.
In a statement DFG said preventing journalists from doing their job constitutes a violation of the public’s right to information and called for their immediate release.
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.
