New York, September 18, 2026–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Turkish authorities to immediately release
Ahmet Polad
, a Kurdish-Turkish journalist who was transferred to Turkey this month after nearly eight months of enforced disappearance in Syria and is reported to be in extremely poor health.
Polad’s lawyer, Özlem Gümüştaş, told CPJ on Friday that the journalist, whose birth name is Mehmet Nizam Aslan and who has also been identified in previous reports as Ahmed Polad, had been transferred to Turkey and arrested but was in need of emergency medical treatment.
On January 18, 2026, Polad and
German journalist Eva Maria Michelmann
were detained while reporting from the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, as government forces advanced on the territory controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). After months of denying knowledge, authorities
admitted holding
them in custody.
Both worked for Etkin News Agency (ETHA) and Özgür TV, which operates across several cities in Europe.
Michelmann was released on June 19 but at the time the whereabouts of Polad were unknown.
Gümüştaş told CPJ that Polad was
transferred to Turkey
on September 8 and arrested by a court in Istanbul on September 11 despite being in extremely poor health. The lawyer had not seen the arrest warrant and did not know what charges Polad faced as the case was classified.
Gümüştaş said Polad was regularly beaten and starved during his time in Syria and needs emergency medical care.
“Ahmet Polad suffered horribly during his captivity in Syria and now that he has been returned to Turkey, he belongs in a hospital and most definitely not in a prison,” said CPJ’s Chief Programs Officer Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Turkey must immediately release Polad to allow him to receive the medical treatment he needs and Syrian authorities must account for what happened to him over the past months.”
Gümüştaş told CPJ that during his captivity Polad had never had any c
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