Turkish police raided a Kurdish cultural center in Istanbul Saturday and arrested 36 people, all Turks, including four documentary makers from the Franco-German television channel Arte, police officials said.
Thirty-five of the detained were later released, but one man was still being questioned by police late Saturday.
During the raid on the headquarters of the Mesopotamian Cultural Center, police seized 33 video tapes, two CD-ROMs and various other documents, some of them in Kurdish, said Esen Isik, director of the Arte-commissioned documentary called "The Frontiers of Europe", and who was among the detained.
The arrests were made upon "the order of the Turkish interior ministry", said Isik, adding that police gave no reason for the raid.
Police also on Saturday raided a provincial office of the Mesopotamian Cultural Center in Izmir, south west Turkey, and arrested two people, AFP was told by an office employee there, who asked not to be named.
Police said they were acting on a warrant to investigate illegal publications issued by the criminal court in Adana, also southwest Turkey, said the employee -- ISTANBUL (AFP)
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