Turkish police yesterday detained a Sinn Fein Assembly member, Mr Alex Maskey, and four other republicans following their arrival in Istanbul.
Speaking to The Irish Times after his release, Mr Maskey (49) said the group was on a fact-finding visit to meet the families and supporters of Turkish hunger strikers. "The police brought us to the station and took our passports. They didn't speak to us at all, and we were released after about an hour and a half and given our passports back," he said.
Earlier this year, republicans in Belfast formed the Turkish Hunger Strikers Action Committee to highlight the hunger strikes of left-wing inmates protesting at the building of smaller prison cells.
The five from the North arrived on a flight from Brussels yesterday afternoon. Mr Maskey said they were nearing the homes of the families when detained.
"The police have blockades on a number of the homes and the arrests could be a way of putting people off going into that particular area."
Mr Maskey is due to return to Belfast on Wednesday. He declined to name his travelling companions but stressed he was the only Sinn Fein member in the group.
In July, members of the Turkish Hunger Strikers Action Committee mounted a picket outside the European Commission offices in Belfast in memory of 29 Turkish hunger strikers who had died and in protest against Turkey's campaign to join the EU.
The hunger strike began last October after hundreds of leftwing inmates opposed the building of new jails where cells holding a maximum of three replace large dormitories.
Prisoners and human rights activists claim confinement in smaller units alienates inmates from one another and leaves them vulnerable to ill-treatment and torture.
Mr Maskey, an Assembly member for West Belfast, survived a UFF murder attempt in 1987. In 1983, he was the first republican to be elected to Belfast City Council. However, Sinn Fein's attempts to have him appointed lord mayor have been thwarted by the Alliance party's refusal on two separate occasions to back his nomination.
A senior republican, Mr Maskey was interned for the first time at the age of 18 in 1971.
He was rearrested shortly after his release in 1972 and spent three years in jail.