Media freedom groups urge release of Syria journalist working for AFP

The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday called for the immediate release of Syrian journalist Bakr al-Kassem who has been detained by pro-Turkish factions.

Kassem has worked for several media outlets including AFP in an area of the north of Syria controlled by Turkey-backed rebel factions.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said earlier on Tuesday he had been detained by local "military police" for unknown reasons.

Yeganeh Rezaian, interim regional coordinator for the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said "local authorities should immediately release al-Kassem and stop detaining journalists", expressing concern over his arrest "without explanation".

Rezaian added in a statement that the journalist was detained by "Syrian opposition factions" who then "transferred him to Turkish intelligence custody".

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said Kassem was arrested by "Turkish intelligence and (local) military police" and was "beaten".

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a statement called "on local authorities and all parties involved in his arrest to free him immediately".

"The harassment of journalists must stop in this country, which is one of the world's most dangerous for media workers," said RSF's Middle East director Jonathan Dagher.

Kassem's wife Nabiha Taha, who is also a journalist, told AFP she and her husband were detained on Monday in the city of Al-Bab where they live, near the border with Turkey, as they returned by car from covering an event.

Taha said she was released a short time later but Kassem was still detained, adding that she did not know "the reason for his arrest nor the place where he is being held".

She said their telephones were seized and their house was searched, with Kassem's computer and cameras also confiscated.

Abdurrahman Mustafa, the head of the Syrian interim government which administers the area, told AFP if Kassem's arrest was "linked to freedom of the press, it would be examined and dealt with as quickly as possible".

Kassem has worked for AFP since 2018, covering Syria's civil war as well as a deadly February 2023 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria and in which he lost 17 family members.

He has also worked for Turkey's official Anadolu news agency and local Syrian media outlets.

"We call on the local authorities in northern Syria to immediately release our correspondent Bakr al-Kassem and allow him to return to work freely," said AFP's global editor-in-chief Sophie Huet.

Syria's war began after the repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and spiralled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and jihadists, killing more than 500,000 people and displacing millions.

Turkish troops and Turkey-backed rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria, and Ankara has launched successive cross-border offensives since 2016.