Turkish authorities arrested a correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper, Deniz Yucel, on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organisation and inciting the public to violence, according to a court witness.
Authorities initially detained Yucel on Feb. 14 after he reported on emails that a leftist hacker collective had purportedly obtained from the private account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey's energy minister and the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On Monday, an Istanbul court ordered Yucel, a dual citizen of Turkey and Germany, jailed pending trial, a witness at the court told Reuters.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised the move as "bitter and disappointing" and called it "disproportionate".
"The German government expects that the Turkish judiciary, in its treatment of the Yucel case, takes account of the high value of freedom of the press for every democratic society. We will continue to insist on a fair and legal treatment of Deniz Yücel and hope that he will soon regain his freedom," Reuters cited the statement as saying.
