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Vice Media Turkey

Vice News journalists held in Turkey over alleged ‘terror offences’

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By John Glenday, Reporter

September 1, 2015 | 1 min read

Two British journalists working for Vice News have been detained in Turkey for alleged ‘terror offences’ after filming clashes between pro-Kurdish youths and the police.

Turkey, Vice News

Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury were charged with ‘working on behalf of a terrorist organisation’ after being arrested as they filmed in the south eastern region of Diyarbakir on Thursday where they were subsequently interrogated over alleged links to Islamic State and the blacklisted Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The pair were picked up by security forces at their hotel where their cameras and computers were seized before being formally charged by a local court.

Responding to the charges Kevin Sutcliffe, Vice News’s head of news programming in Europe, said they were ‘baseless and alarmingly false’.

Sutcliffe added: “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.”

An increasingly tense security situation has developed in the region over the past few days following a number of violent clashes, prompting Ankara to clamp down on press freedoms.

Vice Media Turkey

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