FRANKFURT, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Turkish authorities on Friday formally arrested a correspondent with German state-backed international broadcaster Deutsche Welle in Ankara, charging him with insulting the president through a series of social media posts.
A Turkish court ruling said Alican Uludag was arrested for posts on X which had undermined President Tayyip Erdogan's "honour, dignity, and respectability".
Late on Thursday, Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office said in a statement that it had detained Uludag and launched a criminal investigation into some of his social media posts.
In court documents, Uludag was quoted saying in his defence that he had done nothing wrong and that any criticism of the president or the state's judiciary was within his journalistic rights.
DW SLAMS 'DELIBERATE ACT OF INTIMIDATION'
"If I am to pay a price for the sake of journalism, I am ready. The prosecutor's office knows very well that none of the posts in their claims amount to a crime and are just criticism. Until today, neither the president nor his lawyers have complained about these posts," he said.
Deutsche Welle, or DW, said on its website that the correspondent, who has been working for the broadcaster for several years, was taken into custody in Ankara.
DW Director General Barbara Massing called the accusations baseless and said the arrest was "a deliberate act of intimidation (which) shows how severely the government is suppressing press freedom".
In the report on its website, DW said the allegations against Uludag relate to his criticism - in posts on X about 18 months ago - of Turkish government measures that led to the release of suspected Islamic State militants.
A German government spokesperson said Berlin is deeply concerned about the journalist's detention, adding that DW must be able to report independently in Turkey.
"Journalists in particular must be able to carry out their work freely and without fear of repression," the spokesperson said.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul and Ece Toksabay in Ankara; Additional reporting by Thomas Seythal in Berlin; Editing by Linda Pasquini, Daren Butler and David Holmes)
