Turkey

2016

  
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks to local officials at the presidential palace in Ankara, May 4, 2016. (Adem Altan/AFP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 15

Veteran columnist pleads ‘not guilty’ to charges of insulting Erdoğan Veteran journalist Hasan Cemal, a columnist for the news website T24 and a founder of the news website P24, today pleaded not guilty to charges of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at Istanbul’s 12th Criminal Court of First Instance, T24 reported.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addresses local officials at his palace in Ankara on March 20, 2016. Erdoğan said Russian and U.S. arms were finding their way to Kurdish groups Turkey classes as terrorist organizations. (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Pool/AP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 8

Police detain two men on suspicion of plotting attack on newspaper Police detained two men suspected of planning to attack the printing house of leading pro-government daily Sabah today, the newspaper reported. According to Sabah, suspects Hasan K and Bahri T were on a motorcycle with no license plates, wearing two sets of clothes, one…

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Turkey responds to CPJ letter on Zaman takeover, denying move is politically motivated

When riot police stormed the Istanbul offices of Turkey’s largest newspaper, the daily Zaman, on March 4 following a court-ordered takeover, the Committee to Protect Journalists sent a public letter to Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, expressing dismay at the government’s actions and calling on him to uphold press freedom in Turkey.

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A screenshot from an online video feed of Turkey's NTV television station shows police detaining the man suspected of attempting to shoot Cumhuriyet journalist Can Dündar outside his trial in Istanbul, May 6, 2016.

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 1

Leading Turkish journalists sentenced to five years in prisonThe Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a Turkish court’s sentencing today of two journalists for the opposition daily Cumhuriyet.

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A man reads Cumhuriyet newspaper in Istanbul, January 14, 2015. The newspaper said police stopped delivery trucks from leaving the printers on that date to verify that the newspaper had not republished cartoons from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. (AP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 24

Erdoğan says response to “sleaze” of EU’s press-freedom criticism beneath his dignity “Providing an answer to this worthlessness and sleaze would not be very appropriate for the president of Turkey,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters in Croatia yesterday, responding to EU Parliament President Martin Shulz’s criticisms of Turkey’s crackdown on the press, the…

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Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdoğan removes his earpiece after speaking at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, March 31, 2016 (Joshua Roberts/Reuters).

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 17

Trial resumes for journalists facing multiple life sentences The trial of Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, editor and Ankara bureau chief, respectively, of Cumhuriyet newspaper resumed behind closed doors in Istanbul today. The court today denied prosecutors’ request to combine the case with another case targeting alleged supporters of exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the…

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A copy of Zaman, with a headline that reads 'Suspended, the constitution,' is held up the day after the daily was taken over by court-appointed trustees. (AFP/Ozan Kose)

‘Erdoğan is killing journalism,’ says Today’s Zaman editor forced out after takeover

Since the Turkish daily Zaman and its English-language sister publication Today’s Zaman were taken over by court-appointed trustees last month, over accusations of terrorist propaganda, the papers’ journalists have witnessed riot police fill their newsrooms, the arrests of colleagues, and the loss, through resignations and dismissals, of fellow journalists.

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German television satirist Jan Böhmermann poses on set in an October 13, 2013, file photo (Spiegl Ullstein Bild/Getty).

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 10

Merkel approves prosecution of German comic for insulting Erdoğan German Chancellor Angela Merkel today told reporters the German government would allow prosecutors to act on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s request that television satirist Jan Böhmermann be prosecuted for a profane poem about Erdoğan he read on the March 31 episode of his television program.

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Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdoğan in Cannakale, Turkey, March 18, 2016 (Photo: Khayan Ozer/Presidential Press Service/AP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 3

Trial of 46 journalists, media workers resumes The trial of 46 journalists and media workers arrested in December 2011 resumed in Istanbul today. CPJ attended the trial as an observer.

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Can Dündar (right) and Erdem Gül speak to reporters before their trial resumes in Istanbul, April 1, 2016. (Özgür Öğret)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 27

Erdoğan, in Washington, says not at war with press; bodyguards insult, harass journalists Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, visiting Washington, on Thursday told the American television station CNN that he and his government were “not at war with the press,” in remarks broadcast after his security detail harassed, insulted, and attempted to forcibly eject critical…

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2016