Turkish authorities say they rescue 9 women held captive on set of Internet reality show

Turkish police say women held captive on show set

ISTANBUL — Turkish military police said Thursday that they had stormed an Istanbul villa to rescue nine captive women whose scantily clad images were posted online after they were recruited for a television reality show.

The women said they had believed they were being filmed for a television show like “Big Brother,” which confines a group of people to a house under the constant gaze of cameras, the private Dogan news agency and other Turkish media said, without citing sources.

Instead, pictures of the women posing in bathing suits and exercising were distributed on a Turkish-language Web site that allowed users to vote for their favorite woman, and see more images, by charging money through their mobile phones.

Dogan and the HaberTurk newspaper said the women soon realized they had been duped, and asked to leave the villa.

The women were held captive for about two months, a spokesman for the military police in the region who carried out the raid told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give details of the raid to the media.

The women were rescued on Monday in the villa in Riva, a summer resort on the outskirts of Istanbul, he said, without providing further details.

Hilmi Tufan Cakir, a lawyer representing the company that organized the show, said that eight out of the nine women had formally complained that they were held against their will. He said that they had not actually been held captive. He did not elaborate, other than to say he believed prosecutors were preparing an indictment against some company officials charging them with holding the women.

“There is no question of them being forcibly held, there’s no question of them being held captive,” Cakir told The Associated Press.

Newspaper reports said the women had responded to an ad searching for contestants for a reality show that would be aired on a major Turkish television station. The nine, including a teenager, were selected from a group of applicants following an interview, Dogan said.

They were made to sign a contract that stipulated that they could have no contact with their families or the outside world and would have to pay a 50,000 Turkish Lira fine (US$33,000; euro23,000) if they left the show before two months, the agency reported.

The women were told they could not leave unless they paid the fine and those who insisted were threatened, Dogan said.

Cakir said that the show was legitimate and was broadcast on the Internet to paying subscribers.

“My clients set up a competition with a money reward, signed an agreement with nine girls for 13 weeks,” Cakir said. “They knew that this competition would be aired on the Internet live and that this broadcast would not be open to everyone.”

He said about 14 people had been working on the show for the Istanbul Grup Bilisim Electronic, Trade, Communication and Advertisement company.

Visitors to the show’s Web site are welcomed by a candy-pink page showcasing the contestants and asking viewers to subscribe through their mobile phone and watch footage from the villa.

Viewers can click on pictures of the contestants, opening up pictures and video of the women in shorts, miniskirts or bikinis.

Broken glass could be seen at the entrance of the two-story stone villa and near its pool Thursday. A guard stood watch outside.

Cameras had been removed from the modern-decorated house, but cables were still stuck on walls and on the floors. A room at the entrance of the villa still had editing and video-monitoring equipment.

A handwritten sign on one door read: “No one can do their hair, touch the makeup or take clothes without permission.” It was signed “Beste and Merve.”

Cakir claimed the raid occurred because the women became “bored” and one of them called her mother for help. The villa’s security guard was detained and released pending the outcome of a trial, he said. It is not unusual for Turkish courts to release suspects from custody if the charges brought don’t carry long prison sentences, and the suspects are not likely to escape or tamper with evidence.

Dogan news agency footage showed women being taken to a military police station inside a van on Monday.

“We were not after the money but we thought our daughter could have the chance of becoming famous if she took part in the contest,” Haberturk quoted one of the women’s mother as saying. The paper identified her only by her first name, Remziye. “But they have duped us all.”

She said the women were not abused or harassed sexually.

They were told however, to fight each other, to wear bikinis and dance by villa’s pool, the paper quoted the mother as saying.

“There may have been filmed in bikinis by the pool, but there were no cameras in the bathroom or showers,” Cakir said.

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Fraser and AP Writer Selcan Hacaoglu contributed from Ankara.