A French journalist who was arrested while covering a pro-Kurdish protest in Istanbul has been released without charge, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
Raphael Boukandoura, who works for French publications including Liberation and Courrier International, was detained on Monday at a protest against a military operation targeting Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
Boukandoura, 35, has lived legally in Turkey for at least a decade and holds an official press card.
He was transferred to a detention centre for migrants, his lawyer Emine Ozhasar said.
Asked if Boukandoura might be deported, she said: “It’s a possibility”, explaining that no decision had yet been made.
The arrest sparked calls for his release from rights groups and France’s government.
In a statement to the AFP news agency on Tuesday, the French foreign ministry said it hoped Boukandoura would be “freed as quickly as possible”. Its diplomats in Turkey were “closely monitoring the situation”, it added.
At the protest, called by the pro-Kurdish party DEM, party officials called for “an immediate halt to the attacks” and the protection of civilians in northeastern Syria.
Police broke up the rally arresting 10 people, including Boukandoura.
Arrest ‘unacceptable’
Two weeks ago, Syrian government troops launched an offensive against Kurdish-led forces, an operation publicly welcomed by Turkey, despite its own efforts to pursue a peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to rights group MLSA, Boukandoura told police he was present strictly as a journalist, covering the protest for French daily Liberation.
The police quizzed him about slogans allegedly chanted during the protest but he told them he did not chant anything and was only there to report, MLSA said.
The European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor said he was following “with concern” the reporter’s case, who was “now facing deportation” despite being based in Turkey since 2015.
“Independent journalism is really a hazardous job in #Türkiye for locals & foreigners,” he wrote on X.
Erol Onderoglu of Paris-based media-rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the fact that a French journalist was facing expulsion for doing his job was “unacceptable”.
“It is intended to intimidate journalists covering pro-Kurdish protests in Turkey,” he told AFP.
Liberation, along with Courrier International, Mediapart and Ouest-France, other outlets that have published Boukandoura’s work, all issued statements calling for his immediate release.
Additional sources • AFP