2016 prison census - Turkey: Vahit Yazgan

Police detained Vahit Yazgan, the former Izmir Province correspondent for the now-shuttered daily newspaper Zaman, in the coastal city of Izmir on August 8, 2016, according to court documents and his lawyer.

Izmir's Fourth Court of Penal Peace on August 25, 2016, ordered the journalist jailed pending trial on charges that he was a follower of exiled Fethullah Gülen, according to court documents and his legal representative. The government accuses Gülen of maintaining a terrorist organization and parallel state structure within Turkey that it blames for orchestrating a failed military coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

A court in March 2016 ordered Zaman's parent company put under the trusteeship of figures selected by the government, saying the company and the newspaper had ties to the Gülenist network. CPJ research shows that authorities have targeted Zaman journalists with arrest and prosecution on terrorism charges since the failed July 2016 coup.

Police interrogated Yazgan about his work for the newspaper, according to records of that interrogation, which the Committee to Protect Journalists has reviewed. Yazgan told police that he worked as a correspondent for the newspaper until government-appointed trustees took over, and that he had been unemployed since. He denied having any ties to the Gülenist movement. According to records of his arraignment, which CPJ has also reviewed, he repeated these denials before the Izmir court, adding that he was not religious.

Yazgan is held in Buca Kiriklar Prison in Izmir's Buca District, pending trial. He had not been indicted and no date had been set for his trial as of late 2016, according to his lawyer.