While in Istanbul reporting on the anniversary of the Gezi Park protests, CNN International reporter Ivan Watson was briefly detained by officials in search of his credentials. As you can see in the video below, Watson was speaking about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to stop new demonstrations while standing in front of a row of police officers. During his report, the officers moved closer until they were directly behind him. By around 3:00 in the video, a man with a walkie-talkie interrupts Watson to ask, “Are you a journalist? … Can I see your passport?” Though video was cut off shortly into his questioning, Watson — who was caught in a tear-gas cloud earlier this month — wrote on Twitter, “One officer kneed me in the butt.”
He later added a two-tweet update: “Turkish police released CNN team after half an hour. Officer apologized for another officer who kneed me while I was being detained. Turkish police officer wasn’t satisfied w/my press card from prime ministry. ‘Many are counterfeited,’ he said, demanding passport.”
