AFP journalist Yasin Akgul leaves jail, but lawyer says charges remain

AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, who was arrested this week covering Turkey's worst unrest in more than a decade, was freed Thursday from an Istanbul jail, AFP correspondents said, though his lawyer said the charges against him remain.

Akgul was detained in a pre-dawn raid at his home Monday and remanded in custody by an Istanbul court a day later.

He was charged with "taking part in illegal rallies and marches", drawing outrage from rights groups and the Paris-based news agency.

On Thursday, the court ordered that he and six other journalists be released from custody, the MLSA rights group said.

Akgul's lawyer told AFP he would be unconditionally released but said that the charges against him had "not been dropped" and that the investigation would continue.

The 35-year-old father of two was released from Metris prison just before 1530 GMT, AFP correspondents at the scene said.

The protests erupted on March 19 after the arrest and subsequent jailing of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival.

Defying a protest ban, vast crowds have hit the streets daily, with the nightly rallies often descending into running battles with riot police, whose crackdowns have drawn international condemnation.

- 'Only doing my job' -

"As a photojournalist for an international news agency, my arrest in a dawn raid in front of my family and children was completely illegal. I was only doing my job," Akgul said while leaving prison.

"Over these past four days, all I thought about was my family and getting back to do my job again. This arrest was aimed at preventing us from taking photos in the field."

Agence France-Presse chief executive and chairman Fabrice Fries had denounced his imprisonment as "unacceptable".

Akgul, he said, was "not part of the protest" but only covering it as a journalist, demanding his immediate release.

Eleven Turkish journalists were detained early Monday, and Akgul was one of seven who were charged and remanded in custody.

He was the last of them to be released. All the others were freed earlier in the day bar one on Wednesday, the Turkish Union of Journalists said.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders hailed the court's decision to release him.

"Yasin Akgul's release is welcome and constitutes redress for a monumental injustice," RSF's Erol Onderoglu told AFP, saying the journalists had been subjected to "grossly unjust treatment".

The arrests sparked international condemnation including from the United Nations.

RSF had earlier described the arrests as "scandalous", while the Turkish Photojournalists Union denounced it as "unlawful, unconscionable and unacceptable".

Turkey ranks 158 out of 180 countries in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).