Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Turkey 165th out of 180 countries in its 2023 World Press Freedom Index. The country ranked 149th in the previous year’s report.
“Authoritarianism is gaining ground in Türkiye, challenging media pluralism. All possible means are used to undermine critics,” RSF said.
News websites outside the government’s 90 per cent control on the country’s mediascape are often Turkish language services of international, state-backed media including the BBC, the Voice of America, and Deutsche Welle, according to the RSF.
“As the 2023 election approaches, the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ‘hyper-presidency’ has stepped up its attacks on journalists in a bid to deflect attention from the country’s economic and democratic decline,” RSF said.
The organisation cites a total of 31 journalists and one media worker in custody as of the publication of its report.
According to the Dicle-Fırat Journalists Association (DFGD), which focuses on Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast, 33 journalists were arrested in operations targeting the Kurdish media in the last 10 months. The Turkish non-profit Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) says the total number of journalists behind bars is at least 66.
Last week saw simultaneous raids in 15 provinces to arrest 54 suspects, including DFGD Co-chair Dicle Müftüoğlu and journalist Sedat Yılmaz, who have since been sent to prison.
Yılmaz had written earlier in April that Turkey’s anti-terror laws and press card regulations were weaponised against Kurdish journalists. A few days after the publication of his article, Yılmaz suffered hearing loss due to police brutality in custody.
Several reporters were arrested and battered by police as they covered International Workers’ Day demonstrations. RSF said the treatment they received constituted torture, and called for police officers using violence against journalists to face trial.
