ABSTRACT
During Justice and Development Party rule, politics has overly influenced the news media in Turkey. The government’s connections with highly politicized media owners have led to a politically oriented, polarized media landscape where journalists cannot report freely and objectively. The increased number of imprisoned journalists, especially those from mainstream media, has drawn attention worldwide to press freedom threats in Turkey. Since July 2016, over 100 journalists have been jailed, causing the country to become “the world’s biggest prison for journalists” for the second time within the decade. As unrelenting limitations on the freedom of the Kurdish and socialist press continue, and Turkish and foreign journalists struggle with criminal persecution for their reporting and investigative work, press freedom issues remain a major concern. Based on in-depth interviews with journalists who were behind bars during the last decade, this chapter addresses press freedom problems in Turkey.
