13 journalists detained amid Turkey crackdown

protestor
A demonstrator protests the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 23, 2025. Journalists covering the protests have been detained, attacked, and even deported. (Photo: Reuters/Alexandros Avramidis)

Journalists have been arrested, detained, and deported in a crackdown amid civil unrest in Turkey since the March 19 detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a potential challenger to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the next presidential race.

The government, controlled by Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), launched a crackdown against opposition party-controlled Istanbul municipalities. Authorities have since arrested thousands of protesters and have moved aggressively to tamp down media coverage of demonstrations.

Authorities have raided the homes of at least nine journalists, detaining them along with at least four other journalists arrested while covering the protests, while hurting numerous others. Media regulators have also imposed suspensions and fines on pro-opposition broadcasters and threatened to cancel the licenses of TV channels covering the protests.

While many of the journalists arrested in the initial sweep have been released, press freedom advocates are concerned that authorities are deliberately targeting them to suppress coverage, as the government has done during times of civil unrest or protests in recent decades.

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CPJ acts to protect public-supported media from Trump cuts

This photo, taken on March 18, 2025, shows the headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Prague, Czech Republic. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration put journalists at several U.S.-funded broadcasters, including RFE/RL, on leave on March 15, 2025, as it froze funding to them. (Photo: AFP/Michal Cizek)
The hadquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague. (Photo: AFP/Michal Cizek)

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed three amicus briefs on March 29 responding to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media and freeze funds to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.

In addition, CPJ has:

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Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

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