Paris based international rights organization Reporters Sans Frontieres has denounced the "precautionary" detention of journalist Yasin Yetisgen from Gaziantep, south-east Turkey, and has called for his release.
 
Arrested on 14 August
 
Yetisgen had published an article entitled "Antep and the Shepherd's Fire" in which the term "northern Kurdistan" appeared in his weekly newspaper "Coban Atesi" (Shepherd's Fire).  He is both owner and responsible manager of the newspaper.  The article had been written by Hursit Kacikkirmaz, a writer resident in Switzerland. There has been an arrest warrant issued for Kacikkirmaz as well.
 
Yetisgen was arrested on 14 August and has been sent to an H-type prison in Gaziantep, but he is to be tried at the Adana Heavy Penal Court.  
 
Detention is "archaic"
 
The RSF has denounced his detention, saying:
 
"As the crime of ‘separatist propaganda’ in article 8 of the anti-terrorism law was repealed in July 2003, it seems utterly archaic to detain Yetisgen before prosecuting him on a charge of ‘attacking the country’s integrity and the state’s unity’."
 
The court case will be monitored by the journalist's lawyer Hüseyin Kursun, and by Seyhmus Ülek, former vice president of the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUM-DER).  
 
Saban Kaplan, judge at Gaziantep's First Court of Peace had declared that there was "strong suspicion that Yetisgen had committed a crime, and that the nature of the crime and the evidence pointed towards it being a crime under Article 100/3 of the Penal Court Law" and this was the reason for the detention.
 
Newspaper issue confiscated

Seydi Vakkas Ovayolu, a lawyer representing Yetisgen, said that his client's objection to the arrest was refuted on 16 August, and that he could only receive visitors as of yesterday (20 August). Newspaper representatives have protested against the fact that Yetisgen has been arrested as a "precaution" although no trial has started yet.

The 22nd issue of the "Shepherd's Fire" was confiscated because of the use of the expression "North Kurdistan". The exact phrase was, "Antep is an industrial city in North Kurdistan". Yetisgen was called to make a statement and then arrested. (EÖ/AG)