
Since an earthquake struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, Turkish authorities have repeatedly harassed and detained journalists covering the disaster’s aftermath.
Police in the eastern province of Osmaniye arrested journalists Ali İmat and İbrahim İmat, and authoritie in the capital city of Ankara detained Gökhan Özbek, publisher of the independent news website and online broadcasting platform 23 Derece.
Separately, members of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, a Turkish government body that oversees religious issues, confiscated and damaged equipment from three Greek freelance journalists in the eastern city of Antakya.
These violations took place in the context of Turkey’s ongoing crackdown on the press. The German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle recently announced that it plans to close its Turkey office after authorities refused to renew its license over a technical error in its application forms.
Turkey was the world’s fourth worst jailer of journalists, with 40 behind bars at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census.
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We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.