'Silencing criticism': Report reveals how Turkey's media is under siege

Duvar English

The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) has released its newest report, “Silencing Criticism," that looked into the attacks on freedom of expression and the press. 

According to the report that covered the period between 2015 and 2019, there were 2,779 violations of freedom of expression in Turkey, resulting in the detentions of 6,479 people and the arrests of 2,801. 

This five-year period corresponds to the aftermath of the breakdown in peace talks between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the state in 2015, and the subsequent crackdown on Turkey’s Kurdish population, as well the state of emergency rule that followed the July 15, 2016 failed coup attempt. 

Human rights abuses and the crackdown on freedom of expression in this period, especially among critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), have been widely reported. 

TİHV’s report further contributes to this body of evidence: In a total of 1,372 lawsuits concerning freedom of expression issues, according to the report, 727 defendants were sentenced to a total of 27,448 months in prison.

During the state of emergency period, 184 broadcasting companies were closed by the government. 

The highest number of freedom violations occurred in Istanbul (Turkey’s largest city), Ankara (the capital), and Diyarbakır. The highest number of violations per capita were in Turkey’s majority-Kurdish provinces: Dersim, Diyarbakır, and Şırnak.

"Propaganda for a terrorist organization” (476 cases) and “insulting the president” (346 cases) were the charges most commonly used to silence freedom of expression.

The latter charge was deemed a violation of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last week.

The charges of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” (165 charges) and “membership in a terrorist organization” were the next most commonly used charges. These have been used to detain some of Turkey’s most high-profile political prisoners, including philanthropist Osman Kavala and former Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş. 

Charges of insulting the president, the report found, skyrocketed after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took office in 2014: The number of investigations launched on this charge increased by 47 times, while the number of civil lawsuits filed increased by 40 times. 

The principal medium through which these freedom of expression violations occurred was social media. Since 2015, the government has demonstrated a widespread, systematic campaign to criminalize civilians’ social media posts.

The most common charges levied for posts were “insulting the president” and “propagandizing for a terrorist organization,” but authorities also used posts to crack down on assemblies and demonstrations.

The report found that at least 4,684 people were detained in 578 police operations related to social media between 2015 and 2019. At least 2,357 people were arrested for their social media posts. Of those targeted by these freedom of expression violations were at least 18 MPs, 182 political party leaders, and 53 union and association executives.

While freedom of expression was violated across Turkish society, the report found that these violations were particularly targeted towards the media - more than half of the violations (54%) recorded were directly media-related.

The report found that the media was targeted and criminalized with “an extremely broad repertoire of violations.”

According to the report, a total of 184 media and broadcasting companies were shut down in the five years from 2015-2019. Some 170 of those closures occurred by emergency decrees, and the assets of the companies closed were thus seized by the state.

Only 21 media companies were later allowed to re-open, also by emergency decrees. 

Journalists were also subject to intense pressure and suppression by the state. Between 2015 and 2019, a total of 1,118 media workers were detained as a result of at least 287 police raids and 146 police dispersals of protests. 

Some 281 media workers were arrested and 311 members of the media were sentenced to a total of 1,592 years and 7 months in prison, many on the charges listed above. 

Some journalists were also subjected to violence, and in some cases, death. In the five year period covered, at least five newspapers and 23 individual journalists were the targets of civilian attacks. Barış Boyraz, an employee of the Azadiya Welat newspaper, was kidnapped in Ankara, and Zeynep Tunçel, who distributed the newspaper Evrensel, was kidnapped in İzmir.

Syrian journalists İbrahim Abdulkadir, Firas Hammadi, Naji El Jerf, and Muhammed Zahir el Şerkat, all of whom resided in Turkey, were murdered in Urfa and Antep. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered violently in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

Other forms of media - namely, culture and the arts - were not spared the crackdown on freedom of expression, according to the report. Concerts, exhibitions, theater performances, and film screenings were arbitrarily prohibited by authorities. Some events were blocked by simply preventing access to a venue.

Investigations and criminal cases have been launched against the organizers of art events, and some musicians were even arrested for playing Kurdish songs at a wedding. 

Taken together, the findings of this report confirm that under the AKP-led government, particularly in the last six years, freedom of expression is severely limited in Turkey.