#free rasool

It’s time to tell Turkey to #FreeRasool.

Free Rasool! Vice News

Iraqi journalist Mohammed Ismael Rasool was arrested in late August along with two British journalists from VICE News, Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury, in Turkey's southeastern city of Diyarbakir. While Hanrahan and Pendlebury were released a week later, Rasool remains behind bars.

Rasool, who is based in Turkey, was acting as a fixer and translator for VICE News at the time of his arrest. Rasool, like many fixers, is an experienced journalist  who has worked extensively in the Middle East for The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera as well as VICE News.

Western newsrooms increasingly rely on local journalists as foreign bureaus shut down and reporting from conflict areas grows more dangerous. Without journalists like Rasool, international correspondents would struggle to navigate foreign terrain, and world news would have little local context.

Rasool’s imprisonment is a grave injustice, no less so than imprisoning two British journalists. All three were on assignment when they were detained. We call on Turkish authorities to release Rasool at once.