23 Mar 2016 | Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, Turkey

The increasingly autocratic government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, has clamped down on press freedom and opposing political viewpoints. Index on Censorship has condemned the ongoing attack on freedom of expression and, through its project Mapping Media Freedom, monitored the growing threats to the media. Below is a roundup of our recent reporting on media violations in Turkey.
Below is a roundup of our recent reporting on the ongoing media freedom crisis in Turkey.
Writers and artists condemn seizure of Zaman news group
Index joined with writers, journalists and artists around the world to condemn the seizure of Turkish independent media group, Zaman. Read the full letter
Letter: EU must not ignore collapse of media freedom in Turkey
Press freedom and media organisations wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council ahead of the meeting between EU leaders and Ahmet Davutoğlu, prime minister of Turkey, to express their concern over the collapse of media freedom in Turkey. Read the full letter
Petition: End Turkey’s crackdown on press freedom
Join Index on Censorship, writers, journalists and artists from around the world to condemn the shocking seizure of Turkish independent media group, Zaman. Sign the petition
Turkish court orders seizure of Zaman news group
The seizure of Turkey’s biggest opposition newspaper is the latest move against press freedom in the country. Since the election of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2014, the increasingly autocratic politician has waged an ongoing war with voices critical of his government. Read the full article
Kaya Genç: On “coup plots”, journalism trials and Turkey’s need for a proper dissensus
The modern crisis in Turkey’s journalistic freedoms began in 2008. Index on Censorship magazine’s Kaya Genc revisits the “coup cases” that ended up turning Turkish journalism into a field of feuds and hostilities. Read the full article
Zaman: The murder of a newspaper
On Friday night, security forces stormed Zaman, the widest-circulating Turkish newspaper. Though many Turkish news outlets studiously avoided covering the raids, the screens of international news channels were full of images of Turkish police using tear gas and water cannon against protestors trying to protect their paper. Particularly striking were the injuries to young women wearing Islamic headgear, the very segment of the community, which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) once vowed to defend. Read the full article
Turkey: A long line of press freedom violations
Turkey’s government and courts have demonstrated their unwillingness to adhere to basic values on press freedom and media pluralism. From judicial harassment and seizing media companies to silencing Kurdish and critical media, Turkey’s government has been used by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to silence critical voices in the country. Read the full article
Turkey: War on journalists rages on
The ongoing deterioration in Turkey’s press freedom has been well documented by Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project since its launch in 2014. Read the full article
Zaman’s censored writers
The following columns were submitted to and rejected by the new management of the seized Zaman and Today’s Zaman.
Yavuz Baydar: Bid farewell to journalism, and lose Turkey
Following the presidential attacks on Turkey’s top judicial body, the Constitutional Court, stemming from its pro-freedom ruling over the case of Can Dündar and Erdem Gül of Cumhuriyet, and the unplugging two opposition channels from Türksat satellite, the dramatic seizure of Zaman and this newspaper, Today’s Zaman, both highly influential in their own ways, is one of the final nails in the coffin of journalism in Turkey. Read the full column
Nicole Pope: A lack of free media allows Turkish authorities to control the narrative
How do you write a column for a newspaper that still exists nominally but has been taken over by trustees appointed by an “independent” court? Such are the dilemmas in a country where democratic standards are slipping rapidly. No journalism school or manual of ethical journalism prepares one for such a situation. Read the full column
İhsan Yılmaz: No more genuine elections in Turkey
Just before I wrote my last piece for Today’s Zaman, there were rumors that the Zaman daily, written in Turkish, and Today’s Zaman, would be seized by the government. Read the full column
Suat Kınıklıoğlu: Europa Europa
Turks who are putting up a brave fight confronting the authoritarianism in this country every day are simply aghast at the show put on in Brussels. Turkey’s democrats have been thoroughly exposed to the crude pragmatism of the EU. Read the full column
Yaşar Yakış: Turkey’s bargain with the EU
An important step has been taken in Turkey’s painful negotiations with the EU. Turkey submitted to the Turkey-EU summit, held in Brussels on 7 March, several proposals. Read the full column
Doğu Ergil: Turkey, the humanitarian crisis and erratic responses
The numerical figures of the reality of Syrian refugees in Turkey are as follows: 2.2 million of the 4.3 million displaced Syrians who have been registered as persons of concern by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) currently reside in Turkey. There is an estimated 400,000 who have settled in various parts of Turkey relying on their own financial resources. The total number of Syrian refugees in Turkey is higher than the entire population of six of the EU’s 28 member states. Read the full column
7 Jun 2013 | Campaigns, Europe and Central Asia, Turkey Statements
Index on Censorship is calling on EU Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle to press Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a meeting today on the need to ensure Turks can exercise freedom of assembly and expression in Turkey.
The commissioner should urge Edrogan to foster dialogue with the protesters and to allow the media to report on the demonstrations without fear of censorship.
Unprecedented demonstrations swept the country in reaction to plans to build a shopping centre on Gezi Park in Istanbul. Police reacted with violence and intimidation.
Related: Protests expose the extent of self-censorship in Turkish media | “There is now a menace which is called Twitter” | Turkey losing its way on free speech
Index Events
Join Index on Censorship and a panel of Turkish and British writers to discuss free speech in Turkey, 22 June, Arcola Theatre London
After a four-day trip abroad, Erdoğan returned to Turkey on Thursday night, where he told a crowd of supporters, “These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end immediately”.
Index on Censorship CEO Kirsty Hughes wrote on Monday:
“The EU insists all candidate countries meet its ‘Copenhagen Criteria’ that say candidates must be democracies who respect the rule of law and human rights. Back in 2004, when the Union’s leaders agreed to start talks Turkey was said to “sufficiently meet” those criteria.
“It is no longer clear, given its deliberate creation of media censorship, and the brutality of police in the face of mass protests, that Turkey does meet those criteria. If the EU stands for human rights in its neighbourhood, surely it should make a much stronger, robust condemnation of Turkey’s growing anti-democratic tendencies and its attacks on freedom of expression.”
6 Jun 2013 | Europe and Central Asia
Only days after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called social media “the worst menace to society”, the country arrested 25 social media users in Izmir for allegedly “spreading untrue information” on Twitter. Sara Yasin gives a rundown on Turkey’s Twitter phobia
While most of the Twitter users have now been released, one user is still being held by police. The nature of the offending messages remains unclear, but a number of the videos capturing police brutality have been filmed in the coastal city.
Turkey’s main media outlets deliberately chose not to cover the protests initially, driving Turks to social media in search of information. Ece Temelkuran wrote for Index that Twitter users became virtual organizers of aid and support. Turkey’s major news outlets have been heavily criticised for opting to cover programmes about cooking, schizophrenia, and in the case of CNN Turk — penguins, instead of the protests. This reticence has exposed the extent of censorship and self-censorship in the Turkish media.
Related: “There is now a menace which is called Twitter” | Turkey losing its way on free speech
Index Events
Join Index on Censorship and a panel of Turkish and British writers to discuss free speech in Turkey, 22 June, Arcola Theatre London
As of Thursday, there have been three deaths and an estimated 4,000 injuries since the start of protests.
The integrity of Turkey’s media coverage is not a new problem: as Yavuz Baydar wrote in Al Monitor this week, “for a long time now, the news coverage of the Turkish media has been shaped by the personal interests of ambitious, powerful, money-making bosses with the government.” In other words: staying in business has meant toeing the government line.
Index CEO Kirsty Hughes criticised the Turkish government’s growing authoritarian tendencies and condemned the “deliberate creation of media censorship, and the brutality of police in the face of mass protests.”
12 May 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Turkey
Young people in Turkey have a lot to feel enraged about, from worsening living conditions to the government’s rampant corruption. Since 2015, I have felt my own fair share of rage.
That was the year my father, Can Dündar, a journalist and former editor-in-chief of the opposition daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, was imprisoned on trumped up terror charges.
Pro-government press outlets told lies about him and our family, and prosecutors sought multiple life sentences for his “crime” of reporting on covert arms shipments to Syria. Although he was released nearly 100 days later thanks to public solidarity and a Supreme Court decision, my family was eventually forced into exile, with my parents now living in Germany and myself in the UK.
My father likens Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s tactics to those of Vladimir Putin and multiple other global dictators. “Arrest the opposition, weaponise the judiciary, silence the media, spread fear and disinformation, protect your throne,” he has told me.
Now, ten years later, I have hardly been able to sleep since youth-led protests erupted across Turkey last month following the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor and President Erdoğan’s main rival, Ekrem İmamoğlu. He has been sent to Silivri Prison (also known as Marmara), the same jail my father was imprisoned in.
Once again, this represents a devastating attack on Turkey’s democratic rights and freedom of speech. I’ve been following reports from the handful of independent media that are still operating. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 90% of the media in Turkey is now under government control, which has allowed pro-government disinformation to run riot.
After 22 years in power, Erdoğan’s regime has left the economy in ruins, corrupted institutions, and suppressed basic rights. Since 2016, close to 150 local mayors have been dismissed or detained, and replaced with government-appointed bureaucrats. Leaders from three major political parties are now in prison. İmamoğlu and 91 elected officials from the Istanbul Mayor’s office face false corruption charges. It’s a mockery of justice – especially as so much of the ruling party’s corruption avoids scrutiny, and journalists, lawyers and anyone else who draws attention to the government are prosecuted.
Whilst protests continue despite blanket bans in major cities, digital censorship is rife as social media networks have been stifled by low bandwidth. X complied with government requests to shut down hundreds of accounts; TV news coverage has been cut and channels have been threatened with the cancellation of their licences. Meanwhile, 1,133 protestors have been arrested, with many beaten and detained. More than 300 of those arrested are students, and face potential jail sentences and a ban from ever running for political office, not to mention missing their studies. Footage of police brutality continues to fill my social media feeds – crowds of young people beaten and wounded, or shot with tear gas and rubber bullets, some directly in the eye.
The student demonstrations in İstanbul have ignited mass protests in nearly all Turkish cities. Young people have united across ideological and economic divides and catalysed a fractured political opposition into action, symbolised by the chant, “No liberation alone, all of us or none”. At one rally, Özgür Özel, the leader of the main political opposition the Republican People’s Party (CHP), thanked young people for ignoring his caution and taking the lead. A young man was pictured carrying his father on his back to the polls that had been set up to support the detained Istanbul mayor’s candidacy as a presidential candidate against Erdoğan; 15 million people turned out to vote for him in a day.
The spirit of solidarity continues to grow against increasing cruelty. Mothers who have spoken out for their children’s arrest have been detained themselves. Teachers supporting their students’ rights have been sacked, and students at hundreds of high schools have organised sit-ins to show solidarity with them. Thanks to the mobilisation, nearly half of the young people arrested have been released but 48 remain in prison. The political opposition has organised a nationwide boycott of pro-government businesses, and people have been detained for promoting it.
But people continue to show dissent. The CHP holds weekly peaceful gatherings across different cities and municipalities of Istanbul to keep the momentum going. The government recently blocked the access of spotlights to one major gathering in the Beyazıt district. Thousands of people pulled up their phone’s flashlights instead, defying the darkness and lighting up the town square and each other’s faces.
Despite digital censorship, the internet is also being used as a convening space. The Istanbul mayor’s account is currently banned from posting on X, so supporters have reacted by changing their profile photos to his, sprouting countless İmamoğlu accounts across the platform. When X started shutting these down for “likeness” complaints, they got creative by making alternative, hilarious versions of his photo instead. A whack-a-mole scenario has unfolded where every act of oppression creates its own act of resistance.
Today, one in four people aged 15 to 24 in Turkey is neither working nor in school. Youth unemployment has hit a record high in the country. Gallup’s Global Emotions Report conducted across 116 countries found that Turkey scored near the bottom of its rankings for “positive experiences” in 2024, as it has done since 2020, with high levels of unhappiness and anger. This social environment has no doubt fueled the protests.
A tweet from author, editor and teacher Taner Beyter sums it up: “Young friends, we have nothing to lose. We won’t be able to buy a car or a house. We won’t have stocks. Even if we succeed in the exams, we’ll be singled out in interviews. If we are taken to court, we don’t have ‘our guy’ to bail us out. We won’t get rich in this corrupt economy. Let’s carry on resisting against those stealing our future.”
For many Turkish youths, this is their first protest movement against a government they’ve only ever known as Erdoğan’s – just as mine was during the 2013 Gezi Park protests, a wave of demonstrations that began with the demolition of Istanbul’s Gezi Park. It quickly sparked into a movement against mounting injustices. At their core, both movements have their roots in inequality and crackdowns on free expression, and have been driven by a hope for change.
The millions who came out to the streets during the Gezi Park protests have since been separated and many were individually targeted. Once the crowds dissipated, no longer linked arm-in-arm, people were easier to subdue and prosecute with chilling effects.
But decades of crackdowns have failed to silence young people in Turkey. A photo on my X feed shows a poster raised by a young protester. Under the names of those who were killed during Gezi Park, a note reads: “I was nine years old then when my brothers stood up for me. I may have missed meeting them, but they’ve all gained a place in me. I promise I won’t let this be.”
There’s hope in collective reaction. Youth movements propel frustrations into action, catalysing a fractured opposition to work together for common goals. Established political parties may struggle to meet their demands at first, but they are slowly being shaped by them and changing their approach.
Around the world, young dissidents are speaking out to demand a better future in the face of mounting challenges from inequality to global conflict, state corruption to environmental decline.
Still, pressures against them are mounting. Their legitimate demands are being criminalised across the world from Iran to Palestine, USA to Belarus, Serbia to Myanmar, and more.
This is why at PEN International, the world’s largest association of writers, we’re building a youth network called the Young Writers Committee with representatives from 58 countries. We launched our web platform Tomorrow Club last week along with a podcast series, to amplify the stories of brave young people from around the world, and to create spaces for them to collaborate, learn about each other’s lives and struggles, and discuss how to cope with them.
It’s clear to see the shared experience across borders. We are all suffering from a shrinking space for free expression, and we want to uplift each other, exchange tools and tales, and establish supportive links for a shared future.
There is a common pride in the word “youth”. Although it paints a massively diverse group with a single brush, it can also help us come together against urgent challenges.
Cihan Tugal, a sociology professor at Berkeley University in California, USA, recently noted: “When Erdoğan fights for himself, he is also fighting for Trump, [Narendra] Modi, [Javier] Milei and Orbán, even if their interests do not always align. When the students and others in the street struggle against Erdoğan, they are also fighting for the rest of the world.”
That type of togetherness is demonstrated by young people protesting in Turkey and other countries. We should support and empower them to keep going. Their strong stance for justice and a better, fairer future can bring together fractured masses and pave the way against rising tides of authoritarianism.