Turkey Draws Fire for Detaining US Journalist

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Aug. 13) -- An American freelance journalist has been detained in Turkey after writing articles on the Turkish military's alleged abuse of Kurds in the country's southeast.

Jake Hess, who earned a master's degree in history from Brown University in 2008, was detained Wednesday evening at his hotel in the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir on the grounds that his name appears in an indictment against alleged members of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation (KCK), an umbrella organization of Kurdish groups overseen by the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

Turkey's 26-year civil war against the PKK has left at least 40,000 people dead. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

Serkan Akbas, a lawyer representing Hess, said the government's contention that his client is linked to proscribed groups "is just an excuse." His detention, rather, "has something to do with him being a journalist covering the news of human rights violations in the region," said Akbas.

Hess' name appears in the KCK indictment only in passing: In 2009, while teaching English in Diyarbakir, he volunteered at a nongovernmental organization called the Human Rights Association (IHD), for which he translated reports once or twice a week.

"He was just volunteering when he wanted, coming and going," said senior IHD member Burhan Zoroglu.

In the indictment, which is largely based on secretly taped telephone conversations, IHD Chairman Muharrem Erbey, who is currently in jail awaiting trial for alleged links to the KCK, briefly mentioned Hess' name, according to Akbas.

The brief mention was all that was necessary for Turkish authorities to detain Hess. Akbas said the U.S. Embassy has not yet intervened in the process.

"This is a matter of press freedom," he said. "Secondly and more importantly, all the foreign journalists who come to the region are threatened by this. They want to avoid foreign journalists in the region."

Hess' arrest comes only weeks after he published a series of articles describing Turkish bombing of Kurdish regions, where he reported that the military is allowing forests to burn. The reports, initially published by Inter Press Service, were widely redistributed by Kurdish publications.

"The problem with Turkey, as I myself went through, is that if you cover this stuff, it just becomes all one in the same [in the eyes of the Turkish authorities]," said Aliza Marcus, a former Reuters journalist in Istanbul. "They think that if you cover this news you support the other side. Objective journalism is still a developing field in Turkey."

In 1995 Marcus was charged by Turkish authorities with racial incitement after an article she wrote for Reuters on the Kurds was translated and republished in a pro-Kurdish daily. The first foreign journalist to be prosecuted in Turkey, Marcus was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.

Hess' articles focus on alleged abuses by the Turkish military. "Turks Let Kurdish Forests Burn" and "'We're Not Living, Just Dying'" are two of his headlines that might have caught the attention of Turkish authorities.

Marcus had corresponded with Hess before his detention via e-mail.

"He told me himself, he's new to journalism and really working at it," she said. "He asked me to comment on one of his articles professionally. I got the sense that he is clearly very interested in the Kurdish issue, but he was trying to make his way as a journalist. He is no PKK sympathizer. He approached the Kurdish issue from a critical perspective."

Marcus pointed out that Hess' articles were published well after he had stopped volunteering for IHD. Zoroglu said that he had not seen Hess for several months and thought he had returned to the U.S.

By today Hess had been in detention for more than 48 hours without formal charges being announced, beyond the initial legal limitation. But a prosecutor today was granted a further 24-hour extension of Hess' detention. Akbas had initially thought Hess would be deported, but under a Turkish national security law his detention could be extended again.

In a statement, the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders said, "Detaining a journalist should be an exceptional measure resulting from a thorough investigation establishing that he has committed a serious crime. We call for Hess's immediate release. Neither placing him in pre-trial detention nor deporting him are appropriate solutions."

In New York, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists made a similar plea. "Jake Hess is a legitimate journalist and the mere appearance of his name in KCK documents is not grounds for detention, prosecution, or deportation," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the CPJ's program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. "We call on Turkish authorities to immediately release Hess and not hinder his reporting."

Sanjay Suri, London-based editor-in-chief of the Inter Press Service, reportedly told the CPJ that Hess' "pieces have been on rights for Kurds within areas of Turkey and northern Iraq," and that Hess was due to appear before a judge on Saturday.
Suri did not respond to a request for comment from AOL News.

In an email, Hess' lawyer, Akbas, said that he was able to consult with his client only after he had been held for 27 hours, and only due to "the efforts" of U.S consular officials. Akbas said he had a "strong clue" that Turkish officials were "working on deportation transactions," against which he suggested there was scant legal recourse, as the Interior Ministry "has been vested with indisputable power to deport foreigners."

A State Department spokesperson in Washington said that because Hess had not waived provisions of the Privacy Act, the Bureau of Consular Affairs could not confirm that consular officials were in contact with him.