Italian, French journos released; how about Turkish colleagues?

French photojournalist Mathias Depardon was freed and deported on June 9, after a month of captivity without any official charges. When he was stopped by the police on May 8, Depardon was taking pictures in the Hasankeyf district of the southeastern Anatolian province of Batman on an assignment for National Geographic. 

It was very good news to hear that Depardon could regain his freedom and return to his family and friends in France at a time when Turkish prisons are still home to hundreds of journalists. 

Depardon's arrest and release bear a resemblance to the case of Italian journalist Gabriele Del Grande, who was released after nearly three weeks in custody in Hatay, on the Syrian border, while working on a book on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In the eyes of security forces, both journalists were believed to be conducting suspicious activities under the guise of a journalist in Turkey's most sensitive areas. Both men went on a temporary hunger strike in a bid to attract international attention to their case with concerns that they might have been arrested as a result of persecution. 

As a matter of fact, before Depardon and Del Grande, a Turkish-German journalist, Deniz Yücel was also detained and arrested on charges of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Yücel has been in prison since February.

All three journalists are from prominent European Union countries where freedom of expression, among other fundamental freedoms, are valued and protected as far as possible. The difference is the level of bilateral relations of all these three countries with Turkey. France and Italy share good relations with Turkey while the bilateral record with Germany is far from friendly. 

Both French...