While the West might no longer pay attention to the criminalization and suppression of the press in Turkey, for us journalists, not a single day passes without being reminded of the dangers we face.
Even former journalists who lost their jobs or are too intimated to carry on with journalism remain targets of the Turkish regime. An increasing number of female journalists are targeted and labeled “terrorists” nowadays.
Investigation files leading back to 10 years - when the Gülen movement was highly influential within the police, the judiciary and the executive – are now used as a means to criminalize journalists.
The most recent example of this was Ayşegül Doğan’s case. Ayşegül was sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in jail and is now waiting for the court of appeal for a final decision. Based on illegal tapping and investigations that were carried out by Gülenists that have since been sentenced or discharged, she is accused of being a terrorist. Though she was able to prove that all her activities were related to her job, the Court was adamant to sentence her.
The daughter of the respected Kurdish lawyer and politician Orhan Doğan (deceased in 2007), Ayşegül is a prominent journalist who worked for the foreign press. During the peace process, she worked for IMC TV, which was shut down by decree in 2016.
Kurdish journalists are suffering the worst treatment. They are hunted down in their offices, houses and on the field. Following the torture story in Van, four journalists were put in jail. 100 days have passed and an indictment is yet to come.
In the past month, two more Mesopotamia Agency reporters were arrested based on their journalistic activities. I recently spoke to the news editor of MA, Sedat Yılmaz, who said they knew the risks but believed it is their job to tell the truth. Bear in mind that the country’s news agencies are directly controlled by the regime, MA is perhaps the only news agency reporting from the field, especially in the Kurdish region were the media is non-existent.
Yet Kurdish journalists are not the only ones being targeted.
Melis Alphan, a journalist who quit her job at Hurriyet 2 years ago, has been accused of “terrorist propaganda.”
Why? Because she posted a picture of Newroz in Diyarbakır back in 2015, in which one can see the flags of Kurdish resistance and Öcalan.
Back then, the headlines of all the country’s papers, including pro-governments ones such as Sabahtrumpeted a “historic moment.” One million people joined Newroz and it was streamed live on TV channels. During Newroz, Abdullah Öcalan’s letter announcing a ceasefire was read out publicly.
Today, five years later, Melis, who is well known for her work on gender and environmental issues, is facing a sentence up to 7 years in jail. When I asked her why they pressed charges, she said: “Probably because I am writing on the violation of human rights.”
The Press Out report published on the 10th of January states: “In Turkey, the most important barrier against journalists' access to free, safe and fair working conditions is the investigations, trials and detentions that they face due to their professional activities. As a result of these measures, journalists are not only unable to exercise their jobs in line with professional ethical imperatives, they are stifled by a climate of fear, which imposes censorship and self-censorship upon them. What is more, the dignity and credibility of this profession and the journalists are also compromised in the eyes of the public.”
Another strategy to cripple journalism and any oppositional activity is house arrest. Pınar Gayıp of ETHA news agency was detained along with 47 people who were alleged to have ties with ESP (The Socialist Party of the Oppressed). Five were arrested for “being a member of a terrorist organization”, 27 got judicial control and five, among them Pınar were placed under house arrest.
Recently, a Turkish Court has issued an arrest warrant for writer Cengiz Çandar for one tweet. Back in 2017, Çandar tweeted about a young girl who became a YPG militant and was killed by ISIS.
Meanwhile, oppositional voices on the political right face a different kind of violence. Last week, two journalists were beaten in front of their houses. The attackers of Orhan Uğuroğlu, the Ankara correspondent of the newspaper Yeniçağ, and Afşin Hatipoğlu, a programmer for KRT TV and ex-member of MHP, were both released.
If anyone thinks the media crackdown is over, these recent examples demonstrate that surely isn’t the case. In fact, it goes beyond a mere crackdown. The attacks on journalists, politicians, human right activists and academicians will continue and multiply as the regime feels the need to consolidate its power.