NEWS CENTER - Speaking about the free press journalists arrested under torture, RSF's Pauline Adès Mével said: " With 27 journalists and media workers arrested since June, the Government needs not fear for Turkey’s place in the leading group of world’s largest jailers of journalists, alongside China, Myanmar and Iran.”

 

Mezopotamya Agency (MA) Editor-in-Chief Diren Yurtsever, MA reporters Berivan Altan, Deniz Nazlım, Selman Güzelyüz, Hakan Yalçın, Ceylan Şahinli, Emrullah Acar and JINNEWS reporters Habibe Eren and Öznur Değer, who were detained on October 25 under torture as part of the Ankara-based investigation, were arrested on Saturday, October 29, on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organisation". MA reporter Zemo Ağgöz, who was detained as part of the same investigation, and Mehmet Günhan, who worked as an intern in the Ankara office of MA for a while, were released under house arrest and judicial control.

 

Nine journalists who were detained and arrested under torture were subjected to rights violations in the Sincan Prison Campus, where they were taken. While male reporters were kept in solitary cells, female journalists were subjected to nude searches and were left without water for hours. Reactions and condemnations from international institutions continue to the detention of journalists by torture by the AKP government due to their professional activities.

 

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Pauline Adès Mével, on behalf of RSF, evaluated the government's pressure on the journalism profession and the rights violations that Kurdish journalists are subjected to to our agency.

 

'We strongly condemn the Censorship Act'

 

Pauline Adès Mével, who started her evaluations by denouncing the “Censorship Law”, pointed out that the ambiguity of the law is left entirely to the 'enforcement' of the enforcer. Pauline said, “RSF strongly condemns the new disinformation law that was passed on October 13, regardless of local and international strong warnings against the chilling effect and increased self-censorship that such a step would lead to. We are especially concerned about the high risk of Article 29 of this law being misused, due to its vaguely-worded nature which fails to precisely define what may be considered as one’s « intent (to instigate fear or panic, endanger the country’s internal or external security, public order and general health of Turkey’s society)”

 

'Turkey acts with unworkable laws'

 

“While it is legitimate to combat the spread of fake news or disinformation, legislators and governments often tend to tackle it with unworkable or even inefficient laws and decrees,” Pauline said, adding that Turkey is also on the same path. Pauline, "While it is legitimate to combat the spread of ‘fake news’ or disinformation, lawmakers and governments often tend to fight it with unworkable and even counterproductive laws and decrees. With this law, Turkey takes the exact same path.  In addition to the vagueness of the offense’s constituent elements, which is likely to come with disparity in sentencing, one can reasonably fear that the Turkish judiciary won’t be of any help in preventing or limiting such abuses of the law, as the government’s control over the judiciary has been blatant since the post-coup purges of 2016. Despite a few ‘last stands ‘ decisions coming from the Constitutional court since then, many are the judges who do the government’s bidding and try to limit democratic debate by censoring online articles tackling sensitive topics.”

 

‘Creating a climate of fear pushing journalists to censor themselves’

 

Pauline suggested that the Turkish state use ways and methods that encourage reliable news and information, rather than seeking to create a climate of fear. Stating that it is useless even to remind the government of this, Pauline: “Rather than resorting to methods that will mostly endanger the legal framework for the protection of press freedom and create a climate of fear pushing journalists to censor themselves - thus facilitating the emergence of the fake news the law is supposed to prevent-, Turkey should instead promote reliable news and information, for which trusted necessary tools are already available. Among those is the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), a self-regulatory tool developed by RSF that facilitates identifying and supporting trustworthy journalistic sources of news and information.”

 

'The bill of the upcoming elections'

 

Stating that they reacted to the operations and arrests against the free press, Pauline mentioned that Turkey fell to the bottom of the list of freedom of the press. While pointing to the detention and arrest of 11 more journalists after the arrest of 16 journalists in Diyarbakır in June, Pauline added that the upcoming election campaign and the "disinformation law" enacted in parallel with it were effective in these pressures. Pauline, “With 27 journalists and media workers arrested since June, the Government needs not fear for Turkey’s place in the leading group of world’s largest jailers of journalists, alongside China, Myanmar and Iran.”

 

‘Kurdish press is under heavy attack and pressure’

 

Pauline noted that the recent arrests are "indicative of Turkey's regular abuse of the law in recent years to pressure journalists."Journalism is not a crime. No journalist should be detained in connection with the provision of news and information. Sadly, Turkey has regularly abused anti-terror law to crack down on journalists over the past years - which the recent arrests once again illustrate. In recent years, we have repeatedly voiced our concerns regarding the dramatic intensification of the onslaught on Kurdish and pro-Kurdish media outlets and journalists. The closure of Azadiya Welat, IMC TV, Hayatın Sesi and Özgür Gündem in 2016, and the illegal takeover of Özgürlükçü Demokrasi’ in 2018 seemed to have marked an ultimate low for the Kurdish media sector, but the recent waves of coordinated house raids, arrests and detentions constitute a new low point. The lack of clarity behind the recent arrests and detentions, as well as their scale, leave us under the impression that the State regard journalists in Turkish Kurdistan and reporting in Kurdish language as suspicious by nature, leaving them under acute pressure and heavy risks for their physical and digital safety,” she said.

 

Call for the release of journalists

 

Stating that the peoples of Turkey have the right to receive news from dissident and free voices and they defend this, Pauline called for the release of journalists. Pauline finally made the following call: “With 90% of the national media now under government control and authoritarianism gaining ground in Turkey, media pluralism is already heavily challenged. The recent wave of excessive house raids, arrests and detentions, are another indicator of the government’s growing intolerance toward political opposition, civil dissent and critical media.”