by Pierre Christopher, EDRi intern
On 27 August, a British journalist and a cameraman working for Vice News, a news channel that broadcasts in-depth documentaries about current subjects, and their fixer were detained in Turkey while reporting in Diyarbakir, the main city of the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern region. At the beginning of September, the three men were charged by a Turkish judge in Diyarbakir with “deliberately aiding an armed organisation”. The basis for the charge was that the fixer used a complex encryption system on his personal computer that many Islamic State militants allegedly also use for strategic communications.