On Friday, 14 alleged members of RedHack, the prominent Turkish socialist hacking crew, were arrested and held without bail. But after a day in court and an embarrassing breach of a government website, all of the individuals involved have been released.
According to Hurriyet Daily News, the 14 alleged members were apprehended by the Ankara Police Department’s Cyber Crime Units in various locations and were asked, in the course of the investigation, as close to 30 questions regarding the organization’s structure, duties, efforts, and role in the Gezi protests.
Among those arrested was an alleged Anonymous member and Barış Atay, a prominent actor and Occupy Gezi activist who says the extent of his online interaction is to check social media from his phone. Indeed, most, if not all, of those apprehended to have ties to the anti-government Gezi demonstrations, which began in late May.
RedHack has certainly been a strong, vocal opponent of the Turkish government. The Prosecutors Office has previously labeled the group an “armed terrorist organization” and claimed RedHack “has digitally published photographs of its protests, attacked the internet sites of institutions that intervened in its illegal protests or protests of similar organizations, digitally published the information and documents obtained through such attacks.”
RedHack members, however, claimed that those arrested were not tied to the group, and as if to reiterate the point, hacked the site of the Turkey’s Justice and Development Party. Redhack posted a mock apology on behalf of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which called the persecution a “charade.” The message was quickly wiped but not before it made international news.
On Monday, the 14 accused hackers were in court for questioning, but with little available to actually link them to the actions of RedHack, they were released.
Screengrab via Çapulcu Halk Partisi/Twitter
