Kurdish journalist Sedat Yılmaz has been suffering hearing loss since being kicked in the head by a police officer while under arrest, Mezopotamya news reported on Sunday.
Yılmaz, an editor of Mezopotamya news, was taken into custody on Saturday during a police operation carried out in 15 different provinces in Turkey. Yılmaz is one of many Kurdish journalists detained this week as a result of the Turkish authorities latest crackdown on politicians, journalists, lawyers and activists ahead of the country’s critical 14 May polls.
Yılmaz, who was detained in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır (Amed), was taken to Ankara to make his statement.
The journalist told his lawyers, after the end of a 24-hour ban on lawyers seeing their detained clients, that he had been subjected to police violence.
According to Yılmaz, an officer kicked him in the head as he was being handed over to the Ankara police. The journalist said he has been suffering severe headaches and hearing loss since then.
Yılmaz also told his lawyers that the police made a proposal to him that he work as an informer for Turkish intelligence, and insulted him when he refused.
