VICE News fixer still in Turkish jail after more than 100 days

ISTANBUL

VICE News journalist and fixer Mohammed Rasool has now been held in a Turkish prison without trial for over 100 days.

Rasool, along with two VICE News journalists Phil Pendlebury and Jake Hanrahan, was arrested by police on charges of “assisting a terrorist organization” on Aug. 27 while they were reporting on clashes between police and members of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the youth wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. 

Pendlebury and Hanrahan were released on Sept. 3, but Rasool remains in detention.

“Today is his hundredth day behind bars. He is seemingly no closer to being released, or even sent to trial, than he was when Phil and I had to leave him behind some 89 days ago,” wrote Hanrahan in a post on Dec. 5.

“Rasool is caught in a state of limbo. The Turkish authorities say they’re still investigating — an investigation that has gone on for one hundred days with no progress or end in sight,” he added.