The entire digital archive of Aram Publishing House in Diyarbakır (Amed), which publishes books in Kurdish and Turkish, was seized in a raid on Tuesday.
After the search, instead of a search report, the police left a note at the publishing house saying, “Flash drives, computer safes, laptops and cell phones on the table were seized in every room.”
“We know about these operations against Kurdish journalists, publishers and politicians from the past. We have been trying to publish under these conditions for eight years, so it is not a new situation for us. We also knew that the pressure would increase towards the elections,” Arif Altan, one of the publishing house employees, told Bianet.
Police detained 128 people including journalists, lawyers and artists in multiple raids across several provinces in Turkey early on Tuesday, just 19 days before the country’s critical 14 May elections.
The operations targeting pro-Kurdish opposition circles took place in the mainly Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır, Urfa (Riha) and Batman (Êlih).