The Russian government has voiced concerns about the recent incident involving Sputnik's Turkish employees and expressed hope that they will no longer face “restrictions” in Turkey.
“The Russian side has expressed its utmost concern through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding such actions toward media representatives,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
“This is why we are hopeful that media representatives, particularly those working for Russian media such as Sputnik, will face no restrictions and situations like the one that took place the other day,” he added.
On Saturday night, multiple individuals attempted to storm into the apartments of three Sputnik Turkey journalists in Ankara. The perpetrators chanted slogans like “Turkey for Turks” and “Russian spies”. They fled before police arrived at the scene; no one was hurt in the incident.
Contact was lost with the three employees after they went to police to report the attack; it emerged later that they had been briefly detained for questioning along with Sputnik Turkey editor-in-chief Mahir Boztepe. All were released a couple of hours later, while Turkish authorities denied having detained the reporters.
On Sunday, Turkish police searched Sputnik’s office in Istanbul and cloned HDDs from desktop computers. The search warrant was issued by the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office.
The OSCE and several Turkish journalist associations have condemned the incident. Russia’s Foreign Ministry described the raid and the journalists’ detention as a “flagrant violation” of freedom of the press.