Turkey detains BBC journalist reporting on mine disaster

Turkish authorities have freed a reporter for the BBC’s Turkish-language service after holding her for a day without explanation, the broadcaster said.

Hatice Kamer was detained on Saturday while reporting on a copper mine disaster in the Kurdish-dominated Siirt region of the south-east that left 11 miners dead and five missing, BBC Türkçe said in a statement on its website. Kamer had been trying to talk to relatives of the miners.

BBC Türkçe said she had been held overnight at the Siirt police HQ and was in a good condition, but there was still no explanation of why Kamer had been detained.

The German broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), which Kamer also works for, said it had learnt from the journalist that she “is accused of having supported the terrorist organisation PKK through her reporting”.

“She was told that she would have to stand trial,” said WDR after speaking to Kamer by phone. The 39-year-old journalist said there was no evidence to back the allegations, according to WDR.

Dozens of journalists have been detained in Turkey under the state of emergency in the wake of the failed coup on 15 July. Critics say the crackdown goes far beyond measures against the suspected coup plotters and is targeting opponents of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

According to the Platform for Independent Journalism website, there are 145 journalists behind bars in Turkey, several from the Kurdish-majority south-east, where the outlawed PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ party, is waging a deadly insurgency.

Ten staff from the anti-Erdoğan Cumhuriyet daily were arrested earlier this month, causing an international outcry. Several of the journalists under arrest are from the south-east.