Etkin News Agency (ETHA) editor Semiha Şahin and reporters Pınar Gayıp and Adil Demirci were reportedly detained by İstanbul police during raids on their homes on Friday.
Demirci had arrived in İstanbul from Germany only a few days earlier, prompting the Federation of Refugee Workers in Europe (AGİF) to release a written statement calling for his immediate release.
“A Turkish and German citizen, Adil Demirci works as a social scientist in Germany and fights for equal social and political rights for refugees. We will make every effort for him and will expose this attitude of the Turkish state unless he is released immediately,” read the statement.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 256 journalists and media workers were in jail as of April 11, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 197 were under arrest pending trial while only 58 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 140 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down about 200 media outlets after the controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
