Dicle News Agency (DİHA) reporter Hamdiye Çiftiçi has been detained at the E Type Prison of Bitlis (south-eastern Anatolia) for ten months. The journalist was among a number of people who were arrested in the course of raids carried out in 2010 within the context of the prosecution of the Union of Kurdistan Communities/Turkey Assembly (KCK/TM), the umbrella organization that includes the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Çiftçi was detained together with eleven executives of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) as part of operations in the south-eastern province of Hakkari on 9 June 2010. There is still no indictment prepared about her.

After haven been taken into police custody, the court decided to arrest the journalist and took her to prison. Çiftçi filed three appeals against her detention in the meantime.

The appeals were submitted by her lawyer Fahri Timur and dismissed by the Van High Criminal Court Judge on Duty.

BDP executives and Meya-Der representatives detained as well

Together with reporter Çiftçi, many executives and employees of the BDP were detained under allegations of "membership of an organization" in the scope of the operations. The group of detainees includes Mikail Atan, representative of the Mesopotamia Association of Those Losing their Relatives (MEYA-DER).

Reporters and employees of the Dicle News Agency have become subject to attacks and police violence several times, were taken into custody and arrested. (EÇ/EÖ/VK)