Northern Kurdistan: The Kurdish journalist Metin Alataş the employee of Azadiya Welat newspaper, was found dead in the Hadırlı district of Adana.
Although the Turkish authorities have claimed that he committed suicide but his family refused that. Metin Alatas was previously threatened to death for his alleged propagating for the so-called “illegal” organisation.
Metin Alataş 34 year old Kurdish journalist working for Azadiya Welat daily newspaper published in Kurdish was found dead in the Hadırlı district of Adana in Northern Kurdistan (Turkey). The reports say that he might have been killed by the agents of Turkish Authorities.
Alataş was found hung in a tree. His body was taken to the Adana Forensic Medicine Institute. The police initiated an investigation. They faced harsh criticism by the journalist’s friends and family when the police tried to take the statement of Alataş’s father in front of the Forensic Medicine Institute. Thereupon, newspaper lawyer Vedat Özkan gave his statement at the police station.
The preliminary report was based on an investigation supervised by Alataş’s father Bekir Alataş and a prosecutor. According to lawyer Özkan, it is stated that the journalist was strangled that his body did not show any signs of beating such as injuries and bruises.
Alataş’s family had moved from the city of Mardin (south-eastern Anatolia) to Adana in the 1990’s because of the pressure they had experienced in their old home town.
Alataş had been subject of an assault four months earlier. Five unidentified people approached him in a car with an Adana number plate when the journalist distributed newspaper copies in front of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) building on 22 December 2009. Atalaş was beaten and had to undergo medical treatment in hospital.
Atalaş filed a criminal complaint at the Adana Public Prosecution and claimed that he was constantly observed. However, no action was taken. Atalaş’s father said that his son did not have any problems and stated that he was killed.