‘Don’t speak, don’t film’: Journalist arrests fuel fears for democracy after Turkey protests

It was early morning on 23 March when the police came to Yasin Akgul’s door in Istanbul – while his children were still in bed. Just hours before, the Turkish photojournalist had returned home from covering mass anti-government protests. Now he was a wanted man.
“I went to the door and saw there was a lot of police,” he says. “They said they had an arrest order for me but gave me no details. My son was awake, and I couldn’t even tell him what was happening as I didn’t get it myself.”
Akgul, 35, has seen “plenty of action” in more than a decade as a photojournalist with the AFP news agency – from war-torn Syria to IS-controlled Iraq. On home soil in Turkey, he has been beaten by the police several times while taking pictures, he says – including on World Peace Day – and has been detained “so many times”.
But being arrested at home was a first.
“A chill fell over the house,” he tells us. “In my work, at the protests, I have seen a lot of violence, and tear gas, but having the police in my home, I felt more afraid.”

Courtesy: BBC