Ankara.- Turkish police detained several protesters in Ankara on Tuesday who were demonstrating against NATO, arrests that add to hundreds of others in recent days, amid a wave of repression ahead of the 36th Atlantic Alliance summit, which begins today in the Turkish capital.
As reported by the independent newspaper Cumhuriyet, an unspecified number of people gathered at 10:00 local time (07:00 GMT) in Kurtulus Park in the capital, called by the ‘No to NATO Coordinator’ platform and defying the ban on demonstrations in effect in Ankara until next Friday.
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Eyewitnesses cited by the newspaper said that the police intervened with riot shields, surrounded the protesters, and forced the journalists present to move away from the scene to prevent them from filming the operation.
The same witnesses claimed to have seen how several protesters were detained with their hands cuffed behind their backs and that one of them appeared to be subjected to greater violence inside a police van.
Among those detained are several leaders, deputies, and spokespersons from leftist parties and organizations.
On the other hand, the newspaper BirGün reported this Tuesday that its editor, Kayhan Ayhan, who has covered the court hearings of the imprisoned mayor of Istanbul, the social democrat Ekrem İmamoglu, was arrested last night at his home on charges of spreading “misleading information”.
In a statement, the Journalists’ Association ÇGD denounced today that Ayhan was arrested under the so-called ‘Disinformation Law’, a regulation directed against press professionals.
“The practice of detaining journalists under a law that has become a common instrument to criminalize journalism must end,” stressed the association.
Likewise, another journalist, Hazar Dost, was arrested on Monday night “for having attended a protest in 2018,” as revealed today by Dogu Eroglu, editor-in-chief of Ortak, a media outlet specializing in investigative journalism, stating that it is “one more case in the wave of arrests prior to the NATO summit.”
Cumhuriyet has already reported more than 550 people detained in police home raids in the last 20 days.
