Turkey / Europe & Central Asia

  
Turkish parliament

Turkey’s parliament expected to vote on ‘foreign agent’ law this week

Istanbul, October 29, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges members of Turkey’s parliament to vote against the foreign “influence agent law” when it comes up for a vote in the Grand National Assembly this week as expected. “Unfortunately, Turkey seems to be following the regional trend of establishing a judicial tool for demonizing and censoring independent…

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CPJ joins call for Turkey to restore Açık Radyo’s broadcast license

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 63 press freedom and human rights organizations, media outlets, and NGOs in an October 18 joint statement condemning Turkey’s media regulator RTÜK for canceling independent Açık Radyo‘s (The Open Radio) broadcast license as an act of censorship. In May, RTÜK fined and issued a gag order after the outlet…

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Sinan Aygül

Mayor threatens local journalist in Turkey: ‘We will teach him his lesson’

Istanbul, October 16, 2024—CPJ expressed deep concern after a recently released recording of an August 15 press conference included comments from Tatvan Mayor Mümin Erol, in which Erol told reporters that he would attack journalist Sinan Aygül if he could and congratulated the former mayor’s bodyguards, who attacked and hospitalized the journalist in June 2023. …

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Rabia Önver

Turkey investigates Kurdish journalist for ‘spreading disinformation’ over crime reporting

Istanbul, September 23, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists urged the Turkish authorities on Monday to drop the disinformation investigation into Rabia Önver, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish news website JİNNEWS, and stop using house raids to harass journalists. “The police raid of JİNNEWS reporter Rabia Önver’s house was completely unjustified for an alleged disinformation investigation…

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Ruslan Myatiev

Turkmen journalist Ruslan Myatiev banned from entering Turkey

New York, September 12, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Turkey’s July 25 denial of entry to Ruslan Myatiev, director and chief editor of Turkmen.news, a Netherlands-based independent Turkmen news website. “Journalist Ruslan Myatiev’s account that Turkey acceded to Turkmenistan’s request to ban him is a startling suggestion of Turkey’s complicity in transnational repression with…

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Murat Ağırel

CPJ joins call for Turkey to ensure safety of threatened journalist Murat Ağırel

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 22 press freedom and freedom of expression groups on Wednesday in a joint statement calling on the authorities in Turkey to ensure that journalist Murat Ağırel, who has been receiving death threats because of his reporting, remains safe. The statement listed a number of incidents in which Ağırel, a…

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A criminal court in the northeast city of Gümüşhane ordered 69 X accounts, including those of at least three journalists and a media outlet, to be blocked from access inside Turkey. Here, X’s headquarters are shown in downtown San Francisco, California, on July 30, 2023. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)

Turkish court orders social media accounts blocked despite ruling that banned police ‘virtual patrolling’

Istanbul, August 27, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges X, formerly Twitter, site administrators not to comply with a Turkish court’s order to block accounts belonging to several journalists and media outlets. “Turkish authorities continue to practice the ‘virtual patrolling’ and censorship of social media users under the false guise of national security,” said Gulnoza…

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CPJ joins call for Turkish authorities to revoke decision canceling radio’s license

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 17 press freedom and human rights organizations in a Wednesday, July 10 statement asking Turkey’s official media watchdog RTÜK to revoke its cancellation of independent Açık Radyo’s (The Open Radio) broadcast license. In May, RTÜK fined and issued a gag order after the outlet mentioned the mass killings of…

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A composite image of a woman holding a camera, a man standing in a field, and the remains of a car after it was hit by a strike.

Strike injures 2 Iraqi Kurdish reporters in Sinjar

UPDATE: Çira TV reporter Murad Mirza died on July 11 of injuries sustained in the drone strike. He was buried on July 12 in the Girê Gewir Cemetery, according to his outlet.  Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, July 10, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Turkish and Iraqi authorities to investigate after a suspected Turkish strike injured two Iraqi…

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The Turkish flag flies at the Consulate General of Turkey in New York on Nov. 17, 2023. (Photo: AP/Richard Drew)

CPJ joins call for new European authorities to support media freedom in Turkey

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 18 press freedom and human rights organizations in a Tuesday statement asking the new European Commission and the new European Parliament to prioritize press freedom and freedom of speech in dealings with Turkey. The signatories asked the European authorities to “provide support, including direct financial grants, to media organizations”…

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