Pro-Kurdish Dihaber news agency reporter Mehmet Sıddık Damar was put in pretrial detention over his social media posts on Friday.
According to media, Damar visited a courthouse in Mardin’s Kızıltepe district to give his testimony to a prosecutor for the accusations earlier raised against him. The prosecutor overseeing his case sought Damar’s arrest by the court in charge which jailed him on accusations of making propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organization on social media. Damar was sent to Mardin E-Type prison after a court ruled for his arrest on Saturday.
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. (SCF with turkeypurge.com)
