Vice Journalists Moved To Turkish High Security Prison 5 Hours From Lawyers »
The three Vice News reporters who were charged with terrorism offenses in Turkey Monday have been transferred to a high-security prison — five hours away from where their legal representation is based, the media organization said Wednesday.
British reporters Philip Pendlebury and Jake Hanrahan and their Turkey-based Iraqi translator and fixer Mohammed Rasool have now been moved to an “f-type” prison following their arrest in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir Thursday.
Kevin Sutcliffe, VICE’s Head of News Programming in Europe, said: “This move appears to be a blatant obstruction of the fair legal process that Turkey has repeatedly pledged to uphold. We call on the Turkish government to throw out these ridiculous charges and immediately release our colleagues.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Wednesday morning, Sutcliffe said that Vice had not been able to speak to the journalists following the transfer, and said that the allegations against them “are baseless, they are ridiculous, they are ludicrous.”
A Turkish official, who spoke to Al Jazeera under the condition of anonymity Wednesday, reportedly said that the charges against the three were because one of the journalists had similar encryption software on his personal computer to that used by ISIS.
“The main issue seems to be that the fixer uses a complex encryption system on his personal computer that a lot of ISIL [ISIS] militants also utilize for strategic communications,” the official was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying.