Vienna, 16 June 2013
The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) condemns all police actions against journalists and other media workers covering protests in Gezi Park in Istanbul. Numerous journalists and other media workers had been detained in the past days. According to information before SEEMO journalists have also been injured. Police also allegedly targeted with water cannons journalists and TV crews trying to broadcast live.
Today Ferhat Uludağlar and Uğur Can from Doğan News Agency, as also Okan Altunkara and Gökhan Biçici of IMC TV were detained for some hours by the Istanbul police.
Also today journalists Eylem Düziyol and Fulya Atalay were beaten by the police while taking photos.
Yesterday on 15 June near the Istanbul Taksim Square police forced photoreporter Cem Türkel working for the daily Akşam to delete all photos.
Additional cases in the past days are:
Ismail Afacan, a reporter for newspaper Günlük Evrensel and Hayat TV, was injured in the eye and his video camera damaged.
Onur Emre, working for Sol, was injured by tear gas.
Russian reporter Arkady Babchenko was beaten and detained and
Mesut Ciftçi, a reporter for TV station ATV, and cameraman Ismail Velioglu were injured by rubber bullets.
Fatos Kalaçay was assaulted by police.
Canadian journalists Sasa Petricic and Derek Stoffel were detained;
Ugur Can of the Dogan News Agency and Tugba Tekerek of the Taraf newspaper were physicly and verbally abuse by police.
Olgu Kundakçi, working for newspaper Birgün was also hit by a rubber bullet.
Erhan Karadag, reporter for Kanal D, was questioned by police in Ankara and spent one nice in the police.
Journalist Ahmet Sik was hit on the head
Bulgarian journalist Elena Yoncheva was injured by a tear gas;
Photoreporter Selçuk Samiloglu working for the national daily Hürriyet was hit by a rubber bullet, wounding him on the right hand. Additional he was injured on the head by a projectile.