Many journalists in Turkey are being persecuted and kept in jail all over the country. Below is an extensive list of the prisoners, past and present.
231 journalists have been arrested after 15 July 2016 alone. According to the Gülen movement-linked (which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, Pakistan, and the GCC) advocacy group Stockholm Center for Freedom that tracks cases of prosecutions of Turkish journalists, in the year 2018, 122 journalists received a jail sentence.
List of arrested journalists.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of arrested journalists in Turkey: A new updated and searchable list of jailed journalists is compiled by Stockholm Center for Freedom which stated that 165 journalists were arrested, 88 convicted and 167 wanted as of 8 May 2020.
Grounds for prosecution.
Kemalist and / or nationalist journalists were arrested on charges referring to the Ergenekon case and several left-wing and Kurdish journalists were arrested on charges of engaging in propaganda for the PKK listed as a terrorist organization. After the corruption operation in 17/25 December 2013 and in particular after coup attempt of 15 July, the apartments of journalists were raided and sent to prison. The journalists such as Mehmet Baransu, Ece Sevim Ozturk, who were investigating the ‘  Coup attempt’, were arrested. Media organizations such as Zaman newspaper, Cihan News Agency and Samanyolu TV, which were affiliated to the Fethullah Gülen group, were confiscated. Journalists working in these institutions were imprisoned. Life imprisonment was given to journalists such as Hidayet Karaca and Ahmet Altan. With the dozens of published decrees, newspapers, TV, radio, magazine, website was closed. The legal framework on organised crime and terrorism is imprecise and contains definitions which are open to abuse, leading to numerous indictments and convictions. Moreover, its interpretation by prosecutors and courts is uneven and is not in line with the European Convention on Human Rights or the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to the European Commission. No clear distinction is made between incitement to violence and the expression of nonviolent ideas. The application of Articles 6 and 7 of the Anti-Terror Law in combination with Articles 220 and 314 of the Turkish Criminal Code leads to abuses; in short, writing an article or making a speech can still lead to a court case and a long prison sentence for membership or leadership of a terrorist organisation. Together with possible pressure on the press by state officials and the threat of possible firing of critical journalists, this situation can lead to a widespread self-censorship. Frequent website bans are a cause for serious concern and there is a need to revise the law on the internet.
Most journalists are in prison based on the following laws:
Concerns.
Concerns persisted over the rights of the defence, lengthy pre-trial detention and excessively long and catch-all indictments, leading to significantly enhanced public scrutiny of the legitimacy of these trials.
A report issued by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media describes a number of concerns concerning the case of arrested journalists in Turkey:
See also.
Lists:
References.
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