14 DAY TRIAL // A total of 12 individuals have been detained in Turkey on suspicion of being involved with RedHack, the notorious hacktivist group.
According to Hurriyet Daily News, one of the suspects is the actor Barış Atay, who was highly vocal during the Gezi protest. He and the others have been detained as part of police raids in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. They’ve all been taken in for questioning.
Shortly after learning of the arrests, members of RedHack came forward to deny that the arrested individuals were members of the group.
One RedHack member has told Softpedia that Barış Atay is not a member of the collective and that authorities are simply trying to create a second Utku Kali.
Utku Kali is the soldier charged with releasing classified documents on the Reyhanlı bombing. He has denied the accusations, arguing that his commander ordered him to hand over the files to civilians. RedHack has also denied that Kali is the one who gave them the information.
Now, RedHack says that the latest arrests just demonstrate that the government is afraid of them. The hacktivists are determined to “bring justice” to this case and demonstrate that the government has wrongfully accused these people.
The hackers have told us that, as far as they know, the arrested individuals are simply people who spoke against the government during the Gezi protests. RedHack is currently trying to determine their identity, but the group is confident that this is simply a way to put pressure on them.
RedHack has already breached a number of Turkish government organizations in light of the government’s response to the Gezi protests. This latest series of arrests likely means that we’ll see a lot more attacks.