Turkey, jailer of journalists, hedges bets on democracy
More reporters are jailed in Turkey than in any other country in the world. According to CPJ’s recent survey, at least 61 are imprisoned directly for their work, representing the second biggest media crackdown in the 27 years we have been documenting such records. (Only Turkey itself has rivaled the extent of this crackdown, when…
Questions about CPJ’s Turkey report? Here, our answers.
Last week’s release of CPJ’s report on Turkey’s press freedom crisis generated widespread domestic media coverage and sparked a robust public debate. The response from Turkish journalists and commentators was largely positive, but there were some negative reactions as well. Turkey’s Justice Ministry has promised a detailed response this week. Here is a summary of…
Mission Journal: First of two CPJ delegations visits Turkey
This week I joined CPJ board Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe, Executive Director Joel Simon, and Turkish researcher Özgür Ögret in Istanbul to present CPJ’s latest report, “Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis,” and convey our main press freedom concerns, including the mass imprisonment of journalists.
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
The Dark Days of Jailing Journalists and Criminalizing Dissent Turkish authorities are engaging in widespread criminal prosecution and jailing of journalists, and are applying other forms of severe pressure to promote self-censorship in the press, a CPJ analysis shows. CPJ has found highly repressive laws, particularly in the penal code and anti-terror law; a criminal…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
About This Report Nina Ognianova, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, is the lead author of this report and directed its research. CPJ Senior European Adviser Jean-Paul Marthoz, Deputy Director Robert Mahoney, and Executive Director Joel Simon contributed reporting, as did CPJ’s Turkey-based researchers, Özgür Öğret, Şafak Timur, and Nebahat Kübra Akalın. Attorney Fikret…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
1. Summary The Committee to Protect Journalists prepared this report to highlight the widespread criminal prosecution and jailing of journalists in Turkey, along with the government’s use of various forms of pressure to engender self-censorship in the press. CPJ’s analysis found highly repressive laws, particularly in the penal code and anti-terror law; a criminal procedure…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
2. Assault on the Press Nuray Mert, one of Turkey’s most prominent political columnists and commentators, had a long history as a government critic, but in the view of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, her comments last year opposing administration policies toward ethnic Kurds went too far. Erdoğan lashed out with a personal attack that…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
Sidebar: The Dignity of Speaking Out By Nuray Mert I am among those who have had the misfortune of becoming a dissident in Turkey. I do not claim that my misfortune is of the greatest kind—in Turkey, many have suffered for years on end, under various governments and policies with a shared trait of authoritarianism.…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
3. The Anti-State Prosecutions Journalist Ahmet Şık found himself behind bars for writing a book that was not even published. So explosive was the subject of The Imam’s Army that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan likened it to a bomb. Şık was probing too far into one of the most influential and underreported forces in…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
Sidebar: No Justice for Hrant Dink By Nicole Pope Nearly six years after Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot in front of his Istanbul office by a 17-year-old ultranationalist, the real instigators, their links to state institutions, and the role played by the Turkish media in making the well-known journalist and human rights activist a…