Özgür Öğret
Özgür Öğret is a Turkish freelance journalist and CPJ’s Turkey representative. He was lead researcher for the 2012 CPJ special report, "Turkey's Press Freedom Crisis."
Drop in jailed Turkish journalists belies a long-simmering press freedom crisis
In CPJ’s 2023 annual prison census, Turkey was the world’s 10th worst jailer of journalists—its most press-friendly ranking in almost a decade—with 13 behind bars, down from 40 the previous year. But the latest numbers don’t tell the full story. Turkey has consistently vied with China for the top slot in CPJ’s list of shame…
In Turkey, cautious optimism that tough election could be good for press freedom
Turkey’s powerful Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are facing one of the toughest challenges of their two decades in office. Polls ahead of the country’s May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections suggest that the president and his long-ruling party could lose to the opposition coalition of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of…
Newly released from Turkish prison, Kurdish journalist Nedim Türfent reflects on sham prosecution
Nedim Türfent knows why he spent six and a half years of his life behind bars as a convicted terrorist in Turkey. The court that sentenced him explained the verdict in official documents: Because he writes “exaggerated and disturbing news stories” about the state. After his prison term ended in November 2022, “It was…
Turkish presidency reintroduces press card controls that court found restrictive
On April 1 this year, press freedom groups in Turkey chalked up a small win when the nation’s top administrative court, the Council of State, suspended 2018 rules that made it easier for the authorities to cancel or refuse press cards. The changes had transferred authority over press cards to the presidency and barred them…
Turkish social media law consolidates news censorship under ‘right to be forgotten’
In late 2020, a Turkish court ruled that the leftist daily Evrensel should remove a news report alleging that a presidential advisor forged their high school diploma. Evrensel complied, Erdi Tütmez, news editor for the outlet told CPJ by email in January; the report was no longer available when CPJ reviewed the site, though it…
Turkish courts play whack-a-mole with independent news outlets
In March, 2020, Turkey’s Constitutional Court issued an unexpected decision, overruling a local court that blocked a news website in 2015, according to news reports. But the editor who filed the appeal with the court remains unhappy, he told CPJ via WhatsApp, because the original website remains inaccessible in Turkey — along with the 62 replacements…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 21, 2017
Two journalists arraigned, finance manager released A court in Istanbul arraigned Gökmen Ulu and Mediha Olgun, journalists for the secularist, nationalist daily Sözcü, one of the last remaining widely circulated newspapers to be consistently critical of the government, on charges of “committing a crime in the name of a [terrorist] organization without being a member,…