A wave of arrests by Turkish police led to the arrest of around fifty people, including an AFP journalist, this Sunday in Istanbul on the sidelines of the Kurdish New Year celebrations.
Eylul Yasar, a journalist with the AFP video service, was preparing to film the celebrations of Nowrouz, the Kurdish New Year, when she was arrested at a checkpoint.
According to journalists and lawyers present, members of the Association of Lawyers for Liberty (ÖHD), the videographer objected to a body search which she considered
“too insistent”
and was taken in a police van.
The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for his
“immediate release”
.
Bonfire canceled
According to Erol Önderoglu, RSF correspondent in Turkey, around fifty people who came to attend the Nowrouz celebrations, generally accompanied by traditional dances and a large bonfire, were also arrested on site.
The bonfire was canceled, an AFP photographer also noted.
Kurds, who make up about a fifth of Turkey's estimated 85 million people, face significant discrimination in the country.
The former leading figure of the main pro-Kurdish party HDP (now DEM), Selahattin Demirtas, has been imprisoned since 2016 for
“terrorist propaganda”
and more than a hundred mayors of Kurdish localities had their elections canceled in the last municipal elections in 2019.