A criminal case claiming that journalists’ coverage of a deadly March 31 hostage drama in an Istanbul courthouse amounted to spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation should be dropped immediately, the International Press Institute (IPI) said today.

Turkish media reported last week that prosecutors had prepared an indictment seeking prison terms of up to 7.5 years for 18 journalists from nine newspapers over coverage of the standoff in which two members of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) took Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage.

“It is absurd that newspapers that published the hostage-takers’ photo of themselves with a gun to Kiraz’s head, exposing the outrageous and completely unsupportable nature of these men’s actions, now face accusations that they lent support to terrorists,” IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis said. “We urge that these baseless charges be immediately dropped.”

Hürriyet Daily News reported that the indictment – which targeted journalists from dailies Cumhuriyet, Millet, Şok, Posta, Yurt, Bugün, Özgür Gündem, Aydınlık and BirGün – accused journalists of seeking to portray the DHKP-C as “strong and capable enough for any action”.

The newspapers have rejected the accusation. Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar, one of those named in the case, said that his paper’s coverage was “intended to portray the dark and ugly face of terrorism; not to legitimize it”.

The indictment now reportedly includes three additional newspapers, Hürriyet, Yeniçağ and Dokuz Sütun, that had also published the photos. Prosecutors had originally dropped their case against those three, but reversed course after a court accepted a challenge to the decision not to prosecute. The challenge was brought by a terror suspect, Abdülkadir Uslu.

The militants who took Kiraz hostage had demanded the release of the names of police officers under investigation in the inquiry he was heading into the death of Berkin Elvan. The teenager was hit in the head by a police teargas canister amid mass anti-government protests in June 2013 as he went to the store to buy bread, and he succumbed to his injuries the following year.

Kiraz and both militants died after a shootout erupted when police stormed the building.