A Turkish court freed the two British journalists but ruled to keep their fixer, an Iraqi national, in custody pending investigation after assessing an appeal request from the trio’s lawyers.
The arrest of the journalists on Monday sparked uproar from rights groups and raised concerns about Ankara’s record on press freedoms at a time when Turkey is taking on a bigger role in the US-led coalition against ISIL in Syria and cracking down on Kurdish militants at home.
The three were detained last Friday in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir while filming clashes between security forces and Kurdish militants.
Vice News, which condemned the journalists’ arrest and had called the move “an attempt by the Turkish government to silence our reporters” was not immediately available for comment on their release.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has fought a three-decade insurgency for greater Kurdish autonomy, in which some 40,000 people have been killed. Turkey and the United States consider the group a terrorist organisation.
* Reuters
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