TWO of Turkey’s leading journalists were detained today on what their newspapers said were false charges stemming from their work.

In another clampdown by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, writers Timur Soykan of BirGun and Cumhuriyet’s Murat Agirel were arrested at their homes on charges of making threats and blackmail, stemming from an investigation by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Both papers have criticised the Turkish government and extensively covered events surrounding the March 19 arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, which led to the largest protests in Turkey for more than a decade.