Turkey

2017

  
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addresses local government officials in Ankara, January 19, 2017. (Yasin Bulbul/Presidential Press Service/Pool via AP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 22

Diaspora news website censored before publishing The bilingual German-Turkish news website Özgürüz (“We Are Free”), which is edited by exiled Cumhuriyet editor Can Dündar, reported that Turkish authorities had blocked access to the website 12 hours before it published its first story today. The website said it believed ozguruz.org made censorship history as the first…

Read More ›

A phone showing a Twitter error message in 2014. A member of Turkey's opposition party claims police are monitoring social media users as part of a planned crackdown. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 15

Newspaper distributor says security officers abducted, beat him Barış Boyraz, a former distributor for the shuttered Kurdish-language daily Azadiya Welat, told the daily newspaper Evrensel that men he believes to be plainclothes police on December 17, 2016, abducted him from the streets of Ankara and beat him.

Read More ›

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks in Istanbul, December 20, 2016. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 8

Erdoğan praises Trump for ‘beating down’ CNN reporter Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for “beating down” (“benzetmek”) CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Costa in a January 11 press conference, according to media reports and video widely distributed on the internet. Trump refused to take a question from CNN at…

Read More ›

Broken glass scatters across the inside of a café close to the Izmir courthouse targeted in a bombing. News outlets have been ordered to report only official statements about the attack. (STR/AFP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 1

Jailed investigative journalist held in isolation Investigative journalist Ahmet Şık has been kept in isolation in prison and denied basic rights since his arrest last week, according to reports that cited his lawyer. Sık, who was detained December 29 on allegations of spreading terrorist propaganda, was kept at Metris Prison in Istanbul for three days…

Read More ›

2017