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Tolu, who was arrested in April 2017 on charges of membership of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), which is banned in Turkey as a terror organisation, spent months in pre-trial detention in Istanbul before being conditionally released in December 2017. But her travel ban was only recently lifted amid a thaw in relations between Ankara and Berlin. She arrived back home on August 26, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / dpa / Kay Nietfeld / Germany OUT
Max Zirngast, a journalist with the far-left magazine Re:volt in German, was arrested in Ankara at dawn on Tuesday, according to the publication, after publishing articles on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey since 1984. It is blacklisted as a terror organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.
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“Divergent political opinions are no justification for arrests and intimidation, which are happening more and more in Turkey,” Reporters without Borders in Austria said in a statement.
Austria’s foreign ministry confirmed the arrest of an Austrian national, without providing further details.
Rights organisations have frequently criticised Turkey for its violations of press freedom, which have stepped up since a failed coup attempt in July 2016.
Turkey ranked 157 out of 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom index published by RSF.
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