DİYARBAKIR - Journalists detained in Diyarbakır for 7 days sent a message and said: "We did not commit any crime. We did our jobs as journalists. Solidarity strengthens us. It's been 7 days. The process has evolved into fabricating evidence."

 

22 people, 20 of whom are journalists, are detained in the Provincial Directorate of Security for the last 7 days. The journalists were taken into custody with the raids on their homes and media outlets in Diyarbakır on June 8. Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) Co-chair Serdar Altan sent a message regarding the detention process.

 

SOLIDARITY STRENGTHENS US

 

In the message sent on behalf of all the journalists detained at the moment, the followings were stated: "The long detention process turned into torture and punishment. The process started to evolve into fabricating evidence. You will not be able to find anything other than evidence into the fact that we are journalists doing our jobs. Therefore, we are addressing the prosecutor, we want to see what you have. We want confontation. Don't prolongue this detention anymore than you have done so far. Otherwise you will be implicated. People will think if you are fabricating evidence. We did not commit any crime. We did our jobs as journalists. We demand to be released. On this occasion we would like to thank all our colleagues, press organisations, non-governmental organisations and our international friends who have not left us alone and supported us for the past week. Solidarity strengthens us."

 

NAMES OF THE DETAINED JOURNALISTS

 

The names of the detainees, including 20 journalists are as follows: DFG Co-chair Serdar Altan, Xwebûn Newspaper Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Ali Ertaş, JINNEWS Director Safiye Alagaş, JINNEWS editor Gülşen Koçuk, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) editor Aziz Oruç, journalists Ömer Çelik, Suat Doğuhan , Ramazan Geciken, Esmer Tunç, Neşe Toprak, Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Mazlum Doğan Güler, Mehmet Şahin, Elif Üngür, İbrahim Koyuncu, Remziye Temel, Mehmet Yalçın, Abdurrahman Öncü, Lezgin Akdeniz and Kadir Bayram and citizens Feynaz Koçuk and İhsan Ergülen .