At least nine Turks working in pro-Kurdish media, including eight journalists, were arrested by Turkish authorities today on charges of “terrorist activity”, according to their employers and lawyers.

They are four women and five men who were arrested in the early hours of the morning in Istanbul, Ankara and Sanliurfa, the Association of Lawyers for Freedom of the Press MLSA said.

The journalists worked for the Mezopotamia agency or the Yeni Yasam newspaper. The ninth arrested is a “press worker”.

Mezopotamia clarified that its journalist was arrested in Ankara during a “police operation at his residence”. MLSA in a post on Platform X said that journalists were prohibited from consulting a lawyer, a person close to one of the arrested confirmed to AFP, asking not to be named. According to this woman, police officers went to the journalist’s house before dawn.

The families of those arrested were informed of their arrest “as part of an investigation launched in 2022 into terrorist activities,” she explained.

Those arrested in Istanbul were taken to a police station today.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Istanbul said it was “closely monitoring the situation”.

At the same time, the studios of Sterk TV and Medya News, two Kurdish channels broadcasting from Belgium, were searched by Belgian police, the two media outlets said in a statement sent to AFP. The Belgian prosecutor’s office said in its own statement that the searches were carried out “at night” at the request of “French justice” which is looking for evidence of “terrorist financing”.

It is currently not possible to ascertain whether there is any connection between the arrests in Turkey and the investigations in Belgium.