Detained journalists 'moved to high-security Turkish prison'

Three Vice News journalists accused in Turkey of terrorism have been moved to a high-security prison, the online news agency has reported.

The men, who were arrested last Thursday in southeast Turkey, have been transported to the prison some five hours away from where their legal representation is based, Vice News' head of news programming Kevin Sutcliffe said.

“This move appears to be a blatant obstruction of the fair legal process Turkey has repeatedly pledged to uphold,” Mr Sutcliffe said.

“We call on the Turkish government to throw out these ridiculous charges and immediately release our colleagues,” he said in a statement.

“Vice News condemns in the strongest possible terms the Turkish government’s attempts to silence our reporters who have been providing vital coverage from the region,” he added. “We continue to work with all relevant authorities to expedite the safe release of our three colleagues and friends.”

Terrorism charges levelled against the three have been denounced as baseless by media advocacy groups and a lawyer for the men.

"I don't believe the group carried out any activity outside of journalism," Tahir Elci, the head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association in southeast Turkey, who is representing the three, said Tuesday, calling the allegations "aimed at intimidating journalists covering the conflict in the region."

News media and rights groups including Amnesty International, PEN International, and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) have condemned the charges.

The Turkish court ruled on Monday that the journalists - Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury, both British citizens, and their Iraqi news assistant Mohammed Ismael Rasool - had "knowingly and willingly helped an armed terrorist organisation" without being a part of its "hierarchical structure," the semi-official Anadolu News Agency reported.

The journalists were formally arrested in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir four days after being detained while covering the conflict between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish state.

They were held with their driver, who was released on Monday.

Although the court did not identify the terrorist group, Mr Elci said that the three had been accused of having links to the Islamic State and the YDG-H, a group affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

The Kurdish group, which is often referred to by its Turkish initials, PKK, is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

“They were accused of meeting and siding with both the Islamic State and the PKK-affiliated group,” Mr Elci said in a telephone interview from Diyarbakir. “The accusations are based on video footage, documents and photographs seized from the journalists.”

Mr Elci said the arrest of the Vice News reporters was the first time in two decades that foreign journalists had been arrested on terrorism charges.

The arrests took place against the backdrop of mounting violence in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast after a renewed uprising by Kurdish separatists and the resumption of Turkish military operations against their targets in Turkey and northern Iraq.

The new wave of violence has destabilised the country as it prepares for an early election scheduled for November 1st, in which the Justice and Development Party is hoping to regain the parliamentary majority it lost in June.

Additional reporting: NYT