To finally solve the Hrant Dink murder, Turkey must ‘face itself’
After nearly 14 years and multiple court cases, the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, remains largely unsolved even as the extended main trial appears to be set to draw to a close. Dink’s teenage killer and his immediate accomplices are behind bars, but prosecutors in the retrial, ordered by Turkey’s supreme court in 2013, have yet…
CPJ, partners warn of Turkey’s compromised institutions in press freedom mission
Turkey’s press freedom situation is continuing to deteriorate as judicial independence shrinks and the government’s grasp on the internet tightens, a delegation featuring the Committee to Protect Journalists and 10 other international press freedom and human rights organizations said in a statement and a press conference today. From October 6-9, 2020, the delegation met with…
Germany revisits influential internet law as amendment raises privacy implications
On October 1, a new law to regulate content posted on social media platforms took effect in Turkey, The Guardian reported. Turkish journalists already face censorship and arrest because of social media posts, CPJ has found, and the law offers just one more tool to censor news. Yet the legislation was not solely conceived in Ankara; it follows the example of one…
Turkish courts play whack-a-mole with independent news outlets
In March, 2020, Turkey’s Constitutional Court issued an unexpected decision, overruling a local court that blocked a news website in 2015, according to news reports. But the editor who filed the appeal with the court remains unhappy, he told CPJ via WhatsApp, because the original website remains inaccessible in Turkey — along with the 62 replacements…
Amicus briefs support CPJ’s appeal in Khashoggi lawsuit
Nearly three dozen media and press freedom organizations, as well as 10 major human rights organizations and experts, have signed on to amicus briefs in support of CPJ’s appeal in its lawsuit seeking documents on whether U.S. intelligence agencies knew of threats to Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi before his murder by the Saudi government….
US intelligence community should explain document denial in Khashoggi case, CPJ lawsuit argues
The U.S. intelligence community should confirm or deny the existence of documents that may provide information on its awareness of threats to the life of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the Committee to Protect Journalists argued in a brief submitted yesterday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Khashoggi, a Saudi…
For Turkish journalists, fear of contracting COVID-19 competes with fear of arrest
Journalist Evrim Kepenek works in Istanbul as the women and LGBTI+ news editor for the independent news website Bianet. Like most people, she works from home these days, but she is also a street reporter who recently observed twin fears among the Turkish public: getting infected with COVID-19 and getting arrested for talking about it.
CPJ joins calls on Turkey to lift ad ban on Evrensel daily
CPJ joined the International Press Institute, Reporters Without Borders, the Journalists Union of Turkey, the European Federation of Journalists, and 20 other Turkish and international groups in a joint letter today calling for Turkey’s Press Ad Agency, the state regulator of government advertisements in print media, to lift its ban on advertising in critical leftist…
‘The goal is to make us stop writing’: Turkish journalists on attacks and threats
Eight months after he was attacked outside his Ankara home with baseball bats, Yavuz Selim Demirağ still has trouble sleeping. “The worry of suffering another attack at any minute messed with my psychology. Sometimes I feel like I am being followed,” the Turkish journalist said. “In the end, the threat continues. Because the attackers are…
CPJ joins call for Turkish authorities to lift advertising ban on leftist dailies
CPJ joined representatives from the International Press Institute, Reporters Without Borders, the Journalists Union of Turkey, and the European Federation of Journalists yesterday in a joint statement calling for Turkey’s Press Ad Agency, the state regulator of government ads in print media, to lift its ban on advertising in critical leftist dailies Evrensel and BirGün.