Cizre. Image credit: Emma Sinclair-Webb. All rights reserved.
The past two weeks has seen the arrest followed by deportation of three foreign journalists; crowds including a parliament member from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) attack the building housing Hürriyet, the leading newspaper critical of the government; a police raid on a large holding company that includes another opposition media group, and the remaining critical journalists at influential daily newspaper Milliyet fired.
While media freedom is always important in a democracy, the latest assault on the independent media deserves particular condemnation because it coincides with escalating violence throughout the country. The Kurdish peace process that offered so much hope just months ago is suspended, and in a period of less than two months an estimated 200 soldiers, police, Kurdish PKK fighters and civilians are dead.
