Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of November 5, 2017
Journalists arrested A Turkish court on November 9 arrested Nuh Gönültaş, a columnist for the shuttered daily Bugün, Behram Kılıç, a sports reporter for the now-shuttered daily Zaman, and Mehmet Gündem, who formerly worked for Zaman and pro-government outlets including the state-run broadcaster TRT, according to the English-language news site Turkish Minute.
Turkey arrests at least nine journalists
New York, August 11, 2017–Turkish authorities should immediately free nine journalists police arrested yesterday on terrorism charges, and should release the dozens of journalists it has for months jailed on bogus similar charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police detained the nine after the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued warrants for the…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of August 6, 2017
Police detain journalist Police detained Berivan Altan, a reporter for the news website Dihaber, at checkpoint in the southeastern province of Mersin last night because there was a warrant for her arrest, the website reported today. At the time of publication, Altan was at Mersin Courthouse waiting for a prosecutor to question her.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of July 2, 2017
Turkish president tells German newspaper jailed correspondent is a terrorist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in an interview published yesterday, told the German newspaper Die Zeit that Die Welt Turkey correspondent, Turkish-German dual national Deniz Yücel, is a terrorist because he interviewed a leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of June 25, 2017
BBC reporter refused entry Police at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport yesterday detained BBC reporter Jiyar Gol for five hours before putting him on a plane out of the country, the journalist wrote on Twitter. The journalist tweeted that he believes he was not allowed in the country because of his reporting for the BBC. [June 30,…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 30, 2017
Court overturns reporter’s terrorism conviction The Fourth Court of Appeals in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır today overturned its previous conviction of Bertitan Canözer, a former reporter for the shuttered JİNHA news agency, on charges of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization,” the news website Gazete Sujin reported. Police detained Canözer in December 2015…
Willing Accomplice
Collusion by the Turkish media compounds the country’s crisis By Andrew Finkel Turkey’s bloody, failed military coup on July 15, 2016, and the ruthless crackdown that followed are testament to the country’s escalating crisis of democracy. Though the crisis had been developing for years, with journalists and independent media outlets facing intense legal pressures from…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 9, 2017
Erdoğan vows jailed Die Welt correspondent will never return to Germany Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last night vowed that Die Welt Turkey correspondent Deniz Yücel, a dual citizen of Germany and Turkey would never be allowed to return to Germany so long as he was president, the online newspaper Diken reported.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 26, 2017
Istanbul court orders release, pending trial, of at least 19 journalists Istanbul’s 25th Court for Serious Crimes today ordered the release, pending trial, of at least 19 journalists imprisoned in direct relation for their work following the July 2016 failed military coup, according to news reports. The court did not drop any charges against the…
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…