Police Raid on Azadiya Welat

Click to read the article in Turkish

Police have raided Azadiya Welat daily’s central bureau in Diyarbakır.

Police made search in the building, which is located in the central Bağlar district.

Dozens of special operation forces and undercover police officers blockading the building waited at the entrance of the building with long barreled weapons and check the people who enter the building.

Dicle News Agency (DİHA) reported that the police justified the raid by the notice they received that “there are [illegal] organizational meetings held”. Phones and IDs of the 28 employees have been seized.

According to ANF’s report, the detainees are as follows:

Yasemin Sayın, Hayat Yılmaz, Ahmet Kızılay, Arap Turan, Berxwedan Tulpar, Sürreya Dal, Zeynep İzgi, İbrahim Bayram, Engin Özelçi, Ahmet Boltan, Ceylan İpek, Mehmet Emin Kaya, Ziyan Karahan, Veysi Altın, Ercan Yeltaş, Azime Tarhan, Serdal Polat, Cengiz Aslan, Ferit Toprak, Mehmet Hüseyin Şahin, Mehmet Aydın, Pusat Bulut, Mehmet Emin Akgün.

Vesile Tulpar, Bahar Haram, Mecrum Tekol and a child named A.K. being present as guest at that moment were detained as well.

Azadiya Welat

The only daily publishing in Kurdish, Azadiya Welat had started its publishing life as weekly “Welat”. The newspaper has become daily since 2006.

The daily faced countless closing downs and cases, its many employees were detained and arrested. The daily’s distributor, Kadir Bağdu was shot to death in the middle of the street on October 14, 2014.

The chief clerk, Rohat Aktaş was stuck in the basement of the building, which was hit by artillery shooting on January 23 in Cizre where he was staying for reporting as of December 20, 2015, and that lost his life in the basement since no aid was sent. (EA/TK)