Hayko Bağda |
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| 27-Jan-2019 |
8 August 2016: Opposition MP says police told her all journalists' passports cancelled
She was writing after passport control officers briefly detained broadcast journalist Hayko Bağdat as he re-entered Turkey at Istanbul's Atatürk airport on Saturday, releasing him only after confiscating his passport. The journalist, who now works for the pro-Kurdish IMC TV and is a columnist for the news website Diken, formerly worked for Bugün TV, one of the media outlets a court in October 2015 ordered to be put into trusteeship on charges it was affiliated with the Hizmet movement, which the government now accuses of having planned the failed July 15 coup attempt. "It was said that some of [the cancellations] will be corrected, including [in the case of Hayko Bağdat]," Doğan wrote on Twitter. Bağdat today tweeted that authorities had informed him there were no ongoing investigations into him, and that his passport would be returned. In an account of his brief detention published on Diken yesterday, Bağdat wrote, "Two cops stopped me and took my passport. The cops did not know who I was, and they wanted to know what my profession was. I said I was a journalist. They then asked what television channel I am at. 'IMC TV,' I said. When they asked me if it is a [Gülen] community channel I answered, 'No. It is a channel of Kurds. Which is more dangerous?' They laughed and said, 'Right now, both are dangerous.' I was let go after they confiscated my passport because there was no warrant for my arrest."
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