Turkey’s ruling regime has transferred Kaj Joakim Medin, a Swedish national detained after arriving in Istanbul to report on the protests against the jailing of the city's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, to the Silivri prison, AFP reported on April 1.

The Turkish regime holds political prisoners at Silivri, officially named Marmara Kapali Ceza Infaz Kurumu, which is located in Silivri in Istanbul province. Imamoglu is also imprisoned there.

Good spirits

Medin is in good spirits and stays alone in a cell, according to his employer Dagens ETC daily in Sweden.

It added that he can talk to other prisoners through the bars and has access to a garden for walks. He is also well fed and, though he has no books as yet, he will received some, the newspaper added.

Google Translate interrogates

Medin was detained at Istanbul Airport on March 27, his lawyer Batikan Erkoc, a member of the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), informed the public after on April 1 visiting the journalist in Silivri.

During Medin's interrogation, no interpreter or lawyer was present. The police used Google Translate to communicate. He refused to sign the interrogation document since he could not understand it, his lawyer said, adding that officers signed it on his behalf and did not provide him with a copy.

The police questioned him about his reporting from Syria. He was asked about a photo showing him with a flag of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Unity Party (PYD)/People’s Defence Units (YPG) groups associated with the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Meeting with Turkish ‘judicial’ system

Later on March 27, around 1600h, Medin was transferred to the airport police station with other detainees. He had no food, water or toilet access. He was taken for medical checks twice. Both were conducted briefly in a conference room in front of civilians rather than in a hospital setting.

On the morning of March 28, Medin received a list of lawyers suggested by the Swedish consulate. The lawyers on the list were unreachable. An attorney from the Ankara Bar Association was appointed.

Online hearing takes three minutes

Medin testified via a video conferencing system (the infamous SEGBIS) before a prosecutor. He was formally charged with “insulting” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “membership in a terrorist organisation” and “spreading terrorist propaganda.”

The terrorism propaganda charge was later dropped during the legal proceedings.

Medin was asked whether he had participated in a protest held in Stockholm against Erdogan. Medin denied taking part. He said he had only shared posts on social media.

The proceeding lasted three minutes. He was then formally arrested.

Tarred with the 'terrorist' brush

“The labelling of political opponents as terrorists is a tendency the Erdogan government acquired after the failed military coup of 2016, when a faction of the Turkish armed forces tried to take over,” Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist who won the Nobel prize in 2006, wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian on March 28.

In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a ruling suggesting that criminalising the act of insulting Erdogan was a violation of basic human rights and freedom of speech. In 2022, a fresh annual record was set for the number of lawsuits opened on insults allegedly dealt to Erdogan.

Missing for two days

Medin was missing for two days. On March 28, the Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office said that it had arrested him.

On March 29, his lawyers met with the Swedish national for the first time at the prison in Maltepe.

On March 30, when his lawyer visited the prison, he discovered that Medin had been transferred to Silivri.

New push

Since the March 19 arrest of Imamoglu, the Erdogan regime has launched a new push to detain journalists. Dozens of journalists have been detained and later on released.

On March 27, Turkish authorities deported Mark Lowen, the Turkey correspondent of the UK’s public broadcaster BBC, over his reporting of the Imamoglu protests.

Yasin Akgul, a Turkish national working as a photojournalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP), was detained on March 24 and released on March 27.

Whipping boy

On March 28, bne IntelliNews noted: “The regime tends to treat the Swedish government as something of a whipping boy.”

“During Sweden’s Nato application phase that took place over a long stretch of time following the February 2022 outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Erdogan delivered a range of heavy insults aimed at the country, while out of pragmatism the Swedish government stuck to a measured response,” this publication added.

On April 1, Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson said that he was closely following Medin's case. He has not contacted Erdogan regarding the journalist.

“For now, it's the foreign ministry that is handling the issue,” Kristersson said.

On March 30, Sweden’s foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said that she would discuss Medin with Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan during a Nato meeting to be held on April 4-5.

No spitting incident as yet

In 2022, Turkey’s then foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yelled at Stenergard’s predecessor Ann Linde during a Nato meeting.

bne IntelliNews noted: “The Erdogan regime knows full well that Sweden will not move an inch from pragmatism even should Turkey’s top diplomat spit in his Swedish counterpart’s face.”

So far, no incident of spitting or physical abuse has been observed in Turkey-Sweden relations.