Police officers from the Diyarbakir Anti-Terror Department in south-eastern Turkey raided the facilities of football club Amedspor after its 2-1 cup win at Bursapo on January 31. The win put the club, with a strong following among Turkey's persecuted Kurdish minority, into the last eight of the Turkish League Cup.
Police teams raided the offices in the Seyrantepe district of Amed (Diyarbakir) on February 2, seizing all the computers and hard-drives. According to reports, the computers were seized on the order of the local prosecutors office because of tweets 鈥渟upporting terrorism鈥 from accounts related to the club.
Amedspor spokesperson and lawyer Soran Mizrak said that the tweets were from accounts set up by supporters and had nothing to do with the club and its official account.
Amedspor Football Branch Executive Servet Erol also commented on the incident, saying: 鈥淥ur official account is @Amedspor021. It is not right to hold us accountable for tweets from other accounts. How can there be a raid with this excuse? They could have easily found this out from the IP address.
鈥淭o raid the facilities at the same hour the footballers were eating is intimidation. This must be a first in history. On one hand our stadium is shut down and we are given fines and on the other we are targeted by the national media; this is a campaign to destroy us.鈥
The tweet in question was shared from the account @AmedsporSK and dedicated the January 31 win to the 鈥渇ighters resisting in Cizre and Sur, and all the people of Kurdistan鈥, in reference to Turkish military assaults on the largely Kurdish districts. The tweet has since been deleted.
An investigation was also launched by the Turkish Football Association against Amedspor footballer Deniz Naki, who shared a tweet dedicating the cup win to the people who have been killed and wounded in the 24-hour curfews in the region.
More than 30 Amedspor supporters were also detained after an earlier League Cup group match with Istanbul Basaksehirspor, for singing: 鈥淪top the death of children, they deserve to watch football too.鈥
The club was also given a one-match supporter ban and a 25,000 Turkish lira ($12,000) fine for having a banner that read: 鈥淲e insist on peace.鈥
[Reprinted from .]
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