2 DİHA Reporters Threatened in 1 Week

Private security officials interfered when journalist Murat Altunöz covered a boycott organized by the Mustafa Kemal University Students Association (MKÖDER) in the university's canteen on 19 May. Altunöz is the reporter for the Dicle News Agency (DİHA) for the province of Hatay on the eastern tip of the Mediterranean Sea. He was stopped by the security when he shooted the boycot in the university in Antakya (Hatay).

Altunöz was forced to leave the campus. People in civil apparel, introducing themselves as gendarmerie officers, asked the reporter to hand them his camera. When Altunöz refused to let go of his camera, he was made to enter a vehicle with a civil plate.

In the car, Altunöz was threatened, "We warned you before. Why are you making news for DİHA? You will have to face bad things". Afterwards, the people in the car let him go.

Pınar Ural, another DİHA reporter, was attacked in a public bus in Istanbul on 17 May. She was on her way back from a students' protest action on the campus of Istanbul Technical University which she had covered for the news agency.

Previous threat in the past

Altunöz received a death threat from a civil police officer last year in the Karlısu Municipality of Antakya. In August 2009, the journalist had followed the funeral Yusuf Tiryakioğlu, a military officer who was killed in an armed conflict, when the police officer approached him.

Apparently, the police officer told him, "We will take revenge. We will not bear you here and not the others either. You will see soon, all of you". (EÖ/VK)