Artists show support for imprisoned journalist Deniz Yücel

PEN Germany has called for the immediate release of the imprisoned "Die Welt" correspondent on Tuesday, after a Turkish court ordered Deniz Yücel to be kept in detention while awaiting trial. Yücel had already been jailed for 13 days on suspicions including membership in a terrorist organization.

The dual citizen of Germany and Turkey was taken into custody on February 14 after the publication of a story about a hacker attack involving emails from the account of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son-in-law. He is the first German reporter to be detained amidst a widespread crackdown on freedom of the press in Turkey.

Different German newspapers have published a full-page call to release Yücel on Tuesday. It was signed by over 300 artists, actors, authors, lawyers and editors-in-chief of different publications.

Among the signatories is comedian Jan Böhmermann, known for his satirical take on the Turkish president that led to a series of penal proceedings. Böhmermann's twitter account features several posts supporting the imprisoned journalist, who also happens to have a very iconic 1970s style.

Another famous signatory is author Eric Jarosinski, better known for his nihilist satire on Twitter under the pseudonym Nein. He offered his own take on the events too:

Countless social media users have shown solidarity with Yücel using the hashtag #FreeDeniz. Fellow journalists are posting pictures of their notebooks where they've written that "journalism is not a crime."

Other tweets state that "Free Deniz" should be written on every wall, like this graffiti:

Protests in 12 cities are organized for Tuesday afternoon, in Berlin, Bielefeld, Bremen, Frankfurt, Hanover, Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich, as well as in Vienna and Graz in Austria and Zurich in Switzerland.

eg/kbm (dpa, AFP)