Turkey

2018

  
A Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army fighter stands guard on top of a building in Sawran village, Syria on February 1, 2018. Turkish authorities have arrested at least 300 people, including journalists, who have made critical comments about Turkey's incursion into Syria. (Reuters/Osman Orsal

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 29

Journalists arrested Police on the night of January 23 detained İshak Karakaş, chief editor and columnist for the online newspapers Halkın Nabzı and Artı Gerçek, at his Istanbul home as part of a sweeping crackdown on people who have criticized Turkey’s military intervention in Syria, the daily Evrensel reported.

Read More ›

Turkish police special forces stand guard in Azaz, Syria on January 24, 2018. Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım asked journalists to frame Turkey's military incursions into northern Syria as an operation to protect the civilian population from terrorists, according to the online newspaper Odaty. (Reuters/Osman Orsal)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 22, 2018

Journalists jailed Istanbul authorities on January 18 ordered Veli Haydar Güleç, the former board member for the shuttered TV10, and Veli Büyükşahin, a former TV10 chairperson and current columnist for the online newspaper Artı Gerçek, to be held in pre-trial detention, Artı Gerçek reported.

Read More ›

Turkish army tanks and armored personnel carriers are seen near the Turkish-Syrian border in Hatay province, Turkey on January 23, 2018. (Reuters/Umit Bektas)

Journalists detained after criticizing Turkey’s Syria incursion

Istanbul, January 23, 2018 –The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the detention of at least four journalists in Turkey after they criticized its incursion into northern Syria, and urged Turkish authorities to release the journalists and allow the media to report without fear of reprisal.

Read More ›

A view of Istanbul through the window of a passenger aircraft on December 29, 2017. (Reuters/Marko Djurica)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 15

Journalists in custody Police the southeastern city of Diyarbakır on January 12 detained Selman Keleş, a former reporter for the shuttered, pro-Kurdish Dihaber News Agency, and released him the next day on order of a local court, online newspaper Gazete Karınca reported.

Read More ›

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan listens to French President Emmanuel Macron during a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris on January 5, 2018. Erdogan is in Paris for talks with Macron amid protests over press freedom and the deteriorating state of human rights in Turkey. (Pool via AP/Yasin Bulbul)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 8, 2018

Court rules journalists should be released, but they remain in custody Turkey’s Constitutional Court on January 11 ruled that local courts should release from pre-trial detention Şahin Alpay, a former columnist for the shuttered daily Zaman, and Mehmet Altan, a former host for the shuttered Can Erzincan TV and columnist for the shuttered daily Özgür…

Read More ›

Press freedom oppressors, clockwise from left: Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, and Donald Trump of the U.S. (Reuters/AFP/AFP/AP)

In response to Trump’s fake news awards, CPJ announces Press Oppressors awards

Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump’s announcement via Twitter about his planned “fake news” awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media. From an unparalleled fear of their critics and the…

Read More ›

Demonstrators hold placards and copies of the Cumhuriyet daily newspaper as they stage a protest outside a court where the trial of about a dozen employees of the newspaper on charges of aiding terror groups, continues in Istanbul, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017. The trial against opposition daily Cumhuriyet continued on December 25, the newspaper reported. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of January 1, 2018

New decree shutters two more news outlets The Turkish cabinet on December 24 issued a decree that prompted the closure of Akdeniz Gazetesi and Isparta Çınaraltı Gazetesi, two local newspapers in the southwestern province of Isparta, the daily Evrensel reported. Under the decree, the papers were considered threats to national security, according to Evrensel.

Read More ›

2018