Osman Şiban, a villager, who was thrown out of a military helicopter by the Turkish military officials on 11 September 2020 in the eastern province of Van (Wan) in Turkey, has reportedly been detained during a raid at his home in Mersin city.
Osman Şiban’s home was raided by the police early in the morning at his home in Mersin, Turkey, according to a Mesopotamia Agency (MA) report. After the raid, Şiban was detained and taken to a hospital for initial health control.
Şiban was detained in the scope of an investigation carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office in Van, but the grounds for detention remains unknown.
He was subjected to torture by the soldiers
The torture that Osman Şiban was subjected to with another villager, Servet Turgut, has been much discussed in Turkey, when they were detained by the Turkish military officials during a military operation in their village. The medical examination reports of both of the villagers confirmed that they were heavily injured due to “a fall from a helicopter”, as a Mesopotamia Agency report revealed.
Servet Turgut did not recover from his injuries inflicted by torture and he lost his life in an intensive care unit on 30 September 2020.
Journalists who reported the torture have been imprisoned
Mesopotamia Agency’s Van Bureau was raided by the police following the reports of the torture incident whilst MA reporters Adnan Bilen and Cemil Uğur and Jinnews reporters Şehriban Abi and Nazan Sala, who reported the torture of the both villagers in Van (Wan), were detained. The four journalists are still imprisoned in Turkey.
The International Press Institute (IPI) released a statement, demanding the immediate release of the four journalists.