Belgian police have launched overnight raids on two Kurdish TV stations, Stêrk TV and Medya Haber, in tandem with the arrests of seven Kurdish journalists in Turkey. The two TV stations, which broadcast on news, politics and culture in Kurdistan in the Kurdish and Turkish languages from Brussels, were raided at 1.30am in the early hours of 23 April, the day after Kurdish Journalism Day.
Kurdish media has long broadcast from Brussels, due to the repression faced by Kurdish media in Turkey and other states with a Kurdish-majority population, where the Kurdish language and expression have long been criminalised. Denmark, the UK, France and Germany have all previously banned and criminalised Kurdish TV, while the Belgian police have also previously raided Kurdish TV stations based on their territory.
The latest raids saw damage to TV equipment and journalists prevented from accessing the station for several hours, but the police ultimately withdrew after ransacking the building, without making any arrests. The security guards were handcuffed, the doors of the operating and broadcasting room were smashed, and the equipment inside was destroyed, while computer cables were also severed as 200 police searched the building for four hours, seizing computers.
Meanwhile, seven journalists, five of them female, were detained in Turkey in overnight raids targeting Kurdish opposition media. Those detained were named as Esra Solin Dal, Enes Sezgin, Saliha Aras, Yeşim Alıcı, Beste Argat Balcı and Şirin Ermiş. Turkey was ranked the world’s ninth largest jailer of journalists in 2023, according to the annual report of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). During recent pro-democratic protests in Van, Turkey, journalists were repeatedly targeted with rubber bullets and water cannons and detained for covering the civil uprising, alongside reports of violence in police custody.
With 13 journalists currently in jail, Turkey shares ninth spot on the CPJ list with Egypt. In 2019, the country was identified as having the highest number of imprisoned female journalists. “Many journalists released in 2023 remain under judicial supervision, meaning they must report to the police and may be banned from travelling abroad, or are free pending investigation or trial,” CPJ said, recalling that Hatice Duman, who has spent the longest time behind bars of any female journalist in the world, remained imprisoned serving a life sentence.
In these conditions, the Kurdish press has long sought a safe home in Europe in order to continue reporting on news and events in Kurdistan, but continues to face legal challenges and repression in EU states, including at Turkey’s behest.
Notably, 22 April was Kurdish Journalism Day, marking the 126th anniversary of the publication of the first Kurdish newspaper, itself soon shut down following repression by the Ottoman authorities. Repression of Kurdish journalism has continued ever since. From 1992 to 1994, a total of 76 journalists, staff and distributors of the Kurdish newspaper Özgür Gündem were murdered in Turkey by the paramilitary forces (JITEM) and Hezboullah forces. In 1994, three offices of the newspapers Özgür Gündem and Özgür Ülke were bombed.
