Ali Ergin Demirhan, an editor at the critical sendika.org news website, was briefly detained on Monday due to an article on the site in January titled “We can stop the dictatorship,” in reference to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Demirhan announced the news of his detention from his Twitter account on Monday, saying:“ Our article titled ‘We can stop the dictatorship’ is regarded as terrorist propaganda. I am being detained.”
He was released after giving testimony to the prosecutor.
The editor was taken into custody by police officers at the sendika.org offices in İstanbul on accusations that he disseminated terrorist propaganda.
The article, dated Jan. 11, called on the public to organize and join forces against a dictatorial regime that it said was being established in the country by Erdoğan.
President Erdoğan is harshly accused by his critics of establishing one-man rule in Turkey, destroying the separation of powers and silencing dissent.
Turkey, which has more than 250 jailed journalists and media workers, is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released in April by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
As the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists, Turkey has managed to fall another two places in the past year, which saw a succession of mass trials, according to RSF. If Turkey drops two more spots, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the world’s poorest record in press freedom.
