Two British journalists and their translator have been formally charged by a Turkish court with terrorist offences, in a case that is raising more concern among human rights groups about press freedom in the country.

Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendelbury of Vice News, and the translator, a local journalist, were arrested last week in Diyarbakir.

They had been in the southeast filming clashes between Kurdish militants and the police.

Their lawyer said when he saw them, they asked him why they had been detained. They denied any wrongdoing.

“I told them they were detained after a tip-off,” the lawyer, Poyraz Oral, said.

A fourth man, the group’s driver, was reportedly allowed to go free.

In a statement, the Diyarbakir chief prosecutor said: “Although the suspects were not involved in the terrorist organisation’s hierarchy, it was decided that they were arrested for helping the organisation willingly”.

Security sources told Reuters the three were in close contact with the ban