İZMİR - Stating that the pressure on the press is an effort to hide the truth, women journalists said: “The truth has a habit of coming out. We will not refrain from criticizing the government for fear of punishment.”

 

With the decision taken by the United Nations General Assembly on May 3, 1993, it was decided to celebrate May 3 as the World Press Freedom Day. Although attention is drawn to the censorship imposed on the press on May 3 every year, pressure, censorship, police violence and arrests continue to increase. Expressing that the attacks against the press stemmed from the concern of not revealing the facts, women journalists stated that the truths will come out.

 

‘Most prosecuted profession journalism in Turkey’

 

Expressing that the government has exerted all kinds of pressure on the press and citizens so that the people do not learn the truth, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) reporter Sevda Aydın stated that it is not easy to reveal the truth in Turkey. Stating that the government judging members of the press by evaluating every news made within the scope of "fight against terrorism". "Journalism is the most judged profession in Turkey. Prisons are full of journalists. They also change the judiciary according to themselves. They are trying to intimidate us in this way so that the truth is not revealed. However, there is truth has a habit of coming out. If I do not take it out, sooner or later someone will reveal the truth," she said.

 

‘They know we are the opposition press’

 

Expressing that the police are trying to prevent reporting through arbitrary practices, Sevda cited as an example of the prevention of the reporters of the agencies from shooting by taking the police blockade on the day of the Kobanê Case in Ankara. Sevda stated: "They said to our reporters, ‘We will not let the MA take images here, we have received such orders from our supervisor.’ We have witnessed the worse of these situations. We face many difficulties such as holding guns on the doors. The police are using verbal or physical harassment in a way that prevents us from taking images everywhere because they know we are the opposition press."

 

‘They pose an obstacle to the truths’

 

Stating that the prohibition of the citizens' right to take images by the General Directorate of Security is part of the effort to hide the truths, Sevda reminded that violence is also perpetuated in the field, just as the machines of the press's photographs are tried to be broken. Sevda said: “As the journalists, as a result of the lawsuits we have filed, the fact that the violence they inflicted on us is revealed to be a crime causes them to act within those limits. When the persons who came to the action wanted to shoot the police violent they saw, they were physically intervened. We could argue that they did not have the right to do this, but now they are obstructing the truth by forbidding it. She warned that in the future, with a circular issued overnight, the journalists are banned from taking images.

 

‘We are trying to broadcast freely’

 

Saying that they are trying to be a free press because they aim to inform and inform the public about what happened, İz Gazette editor Şermin Çolak said: “We are trying to publish more freely than other local newspapers. We are not a situation like boss pressure, we are a platform where mostly young people take part. We determine our news. There are no such as things, ‘You will not make this news, you will not go to this news.”

 

‘People are afraid of power’

 

Stating that they do not stop criticizing the government with the fear of punishment, they always follow the facts, but people are afraid to speak due to the pressure on the public, Şermin said: “When we look at the local newspaper headlines, we can see that they are afraid of the government. They criticize us for criticizing the government, but if there is something that needs criticism, we are expressing it. In the interviews with the citizens, it is seen that they are afraid of power. Because it can be questioned to a statement the next day because of a tweet. Normally they want to talk, but they act hesitantly because they think about the future and fear of being arrested.”

 

‘Self-censorship is applied’

 

Ege Postası reporter Özlem Kara, who stated that when new graduates thought that they could make every news when they started to work, they met self-censorship when they entered the sector. “One of the most important reasons for this is that we worry about whether something will happen to us and the people we interviewed. Interns in the sector are employed very intensively. They pay little and have a lot of workloads. University students also work for free. In the places where I worked, they did not interfere with the news I would choose or how I wrote, but there are many examples of this,” she said.