The Istanbul Bar Association's executive board was dismissed Friday on grounds of "terrorist propaganda" and "publicly spreading false information", according to a court ruling published online by a lawyers' association.
Prosecutors had filed suit on January 15 several weeks after the Istanbul Bar Association demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin died on December 19 when their car was hit by what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was a "Turkish drone strike". It happened during clashes between an Ankara-backed militia and the SDF, a US-backed group of mainly Kurdish fighters.
Turkey considers the SDF a terror group tied to the banned Kurdish militant PKK.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets, and the strike was denounced by the Turkish Journalists' Union.
The Turkish military insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
At the time, the bar association issued a statement saying "targeting members of the press in conflict zones is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention".
It demanded "a proper investigation be conducted into the murder of two of our citizens".
Prosecutors immediately opened an inquiry into allegations of "making propaganda for a terrorist organization" and "publicly spreading false information" on the grounds the two journalists had ties to the PKK.
The Istanbul Bar Association denounced the lawsuit as having "no legal basis" and said its executive council was "fulfilling its duties and responsibilities in line with the Constitution, democracy, and the law".
With AFP
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