A court in Turkey charged two British journalists working with U.S.-based Vice News and their fixer with terrorism offenses and sent them to prison on Monday.
VICE News correspondent Jake Hanrahan, cameraman Philip Pendelbury and their Turkey-based fixer were arrested on Thursday last week while filming in Diyarbakir city, the main city of Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast, reported The Guardian. The trio were documenting recent clashes between Turkish government forces and Kurdish militia PKK.
The court charged the three media persons with working on behalf of a terrorist organization.
"The reporters are charged with knowingly and willfully helping the armed terrorist organization without being a part of its hierarchical structure," judicial sources told Anadolu Agency.
VICE News in a statement called the terrorism charges against its journalists "alarmingly false."
"Today the Turkish government has leveled baseless and alarmingly false charges of working on behalf of a terrorist organization against three VICE News reporters, in an attempt to intimidate and censor their coverage," said Kevin Sutcliffe, VICE's head of news programming in Europe.
"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," Sutcliffe said in statement.
