The World press freedom day was ‘celebrated’ in Türkiye con the arrest of six reporters. The journalist Dikle Muftiogluthe co-president of the Union of Journalists Ditke Ferat and the executive of the Mesopotamia news agency Sedat Yilmazas well as three other journalists: Erol Balci, Abdurrahim Tanyeli e Ramazan Debe ended up behind bars at the behest of a court of Ankara. The journalists were among 19 people arrested last weekend in operations in 15 provinces as part of an investigation ordered by Ankara against alleged supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
In fact, these are journalists who work for pro-Kurdish newspapers: all will have to answer for the accusation of terrorism. Among other things, Kurdish journalists or journalists working for pro-Kurdish media are subject to frequent legal harassment and prosecution in Turkey as they are accused of links to the Pkk. The general legal framework in the country is alarming: many local TVs have to face frequent broadcast bans e sanctions imposed by the national media authority, the Supreme Council of Radio and Television RTÜK, in case of content critical of the government. Also online newspapers have to deal with obstacles to regular work, such as VOA Turkish e Deutsche Welle Turkish, banned in June 2022 for not requesting the online broadcast licenses.
Also there safety of journalists is a very sensitive issue in Turkey: colleagues critical of the ruling AKParti-Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) alliance have suffered multiple attacks and threats since the 2019 elections to date. In recent weeks we have witnessed street demonstrations animated by ultranationalists driven by anti-media political rhetoric they rail against journalists, columnists and commentators accusing them of the country’s ills.
In the 2023 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, out of 180 countries Turkey is in 165th place. The reasons are given by the worsening of the general conditions, from one surgical repression ahead of the presidential elections in May. According to Media and Law Studies Association There are currently at least 66 journalists and media employees detained in Turkey, 32 of whom have been arrested in the past 10 months alone.
Erdogan’s latest controversy is directed against Economist which published a series of editorials and analyzes on the upcoming elections to which the president responded threateningly with a tweet: “I will not allow the covers of the magazines, which are the operational apparatus of the global powers, to wag the finger against the will of the nation”.