JINHA

RIHA – Police arrested four journalists, on the orders of the state-appointed governor of Turkey's Urfa province, for asking about Daesh presence in the province.

İzettin Küçük, the state-appointed governor of Turkey's Urfa province, held a press conference to respond to questions about events at the Akçakale border gate. Akçakale forms a border city with Girê Spî (Tel Abyad), the Rojava city liberated from Daesh occupation by YPG/YPJ forces on Monday evening.

Hasan Akbaş, a reporter for the newspaper Evrensel, asked the governor to comment on reports by Tel Abyad refugees that there was a Daesh presence in Akçakale and that they felt unsafe in the city. The governor, refusing to answer the question, pointed at four journalists and told police to take them away. Police arrested Hasan Akbaş of Evrensel, Cumhuriyet writer Pınar Öğünç, Özlem Topçu of Die Zeit and Deniz Yücel of Die Welt.

As the journalists were arrested, a press relations employee from the governor's office loudly declared: "These kinds of questions can't be asked; they're making it tense here!" After the provocative statement, some individuals went after the journalists, although citizens stopped them from physically reaching them.

The journalists were taken to the local counterterrorism office and later released.

(gc/cm)