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…
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.
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…
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…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of December 25, continued
Investigative reporter arrested on propaganda charges The prominent investigative journalist Ahmet Şık was arrested yesterday on allegations of spreading terrorist propaganda. Şık, who was detained in relation to his published writings and posts on social media, was also accused of “publicly humiliating the Republic of Turkey, its judicial organs; military and police organizations,” Cumhuriyet reported.…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of December 25
Investigative reporter arrested on propaganda charges The prominent investigative journalist Ahmet Şık was arrested yesterday on allegations of spreading terrorist propaganda. Şık, who was detained in relation to his published writings and posts on social media, was also accused of “publicly humiliating the Republic of Turkey, its judicial organs; military and police organizations,” Cumhuriyet reported.…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of December 18
Court confiscates assets of 54 journalists Istanbul’s 11th Court of Penal Peace court confiscated the assets of 54 journalists, media workers, and writers, saying there was a “strong suspicion” that they were followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish government accuses of maintaining a terrorist organization and “parallel state structure” (FETÖ/PDY, by its…
How CPJ researches the killing and jailing of journalists
Who is a journalist? In the era of citizen journalism, activist journalism and now “fake” journalism, the question is not academic. The Committee to Protect Journalists has just published its annual census of journalists in prison and next week it will release its survey of killed journalists.