Groß demo in Istanbul: Allegations of terrorism against Swedish journalists in Turkey

A Swedish journalist has been arrested in Turkey due to allegations of terrorism. The authorities accuse him of membership in an armed terrorist organization and the insult to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The state news agency Anadolu reported.

Kaj Joakim Medin, who works for the Swedish daily newspaper “Dagens etc.”, was arrested shortly after his landing in Istanbul on Thursday, as the newspaper initially reported. Later he was officially arrested after he was published by a video conference in front of a court in Ankara, Anadolu reported on Friday evening.

Turkish opposition party demands release imamoglus

Since the beginning of the protests in Turkey against the detention of the now dismissed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, journalists have also been arrested in addition to demonstrators and government critics. On Thursday, for example, a BBC reporter was deported from Turkey after his arrest. According to the British broadcaster, he had stayed in the country for several days to report on the protests.

Meanwhile, the protests against the imprisonment continues. A large rally in Istanbul has also been announced for today. In the first photos, numerous people with flags of the largest Turkish opposition party Chp were seen. The CHP wants to ensure that Imamoglu – its presidential candidate – will be released.

Thousands of people were expected for the mass protest in the Maltep district. The demonstrators accuse the authoritarian of Erdogan of wanting to get Imamoglu politically cold and to get rid of its most important rival with the help of the judiciary.

Connection in the course of ongoing investigations

According to Anadolu, the journalist Medin was arrested in Stockholm as part of an ongoing determination of Turkish authorities in Stockholm, in which a portrait of Erdogan was hung on the outside of the town hall. Anadolu also cited authorities that the Swede is said to have spread propaganda for the forbidden Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK on social media.

The authorities also referred to Medin’s reporting from conflict areas in Syria, the PKK stronghold in Iraq and the southeast of Turkey between 2014 and 2017. The editor-in-chief of Medins Zeitung, Andreas Gustavsson, wrote on the platform X: “The allegations are wrong. Hundreds of percent wrong.”

The German Journalist Association sharply condemned the Turkish authorities’ approach. DJV federal chairman Mika Beuster said that arbitrary arrests of Turkish journalists had become a sad routine. “The detention of foreign correspondents marks a new escalation level and illustrates the nervousness of the president.” However, the truth could not be suppressed. “We journalists watch exactly what is happening in Turkey and do not let us silence.”