26 Jul 19 | Media Freedom, Monitoring and Advocating Coverage, News and features, Russia
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In Russia, dozens of independent outlets have closed or changed ownership and editorial policy in the last ten years. Numerous media outlets are still fighting to survive and produce quality journalism as their reporters face increasing threats of physical violence.
Independent media sources have been hamstrung by restrictive legislation and police, governmental, and private interference. Physical assaults, detentions, lawsuits, fines, and blocked access are common. Many outlets have chosen to practice self-censorship to protect themselves. Strict new laws limiting press freedom have been introduced, despite having progressive press laws from the 1990s still on the books and a constitutional article guaranteeing freedom of the press.
Out of 175 violations recorded in Russia by the Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom project between February and June 2019, 20 were physical assaults that came from political figures, police structures, known private individuals and unknown perpetrators. Several of the cases are egregious examples of how physical violence is used to target journalists in Russia.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship’s Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom project documents, analyses, and publicises threats, limitations and violations related to media freedom in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, in order to identify possible opportunities for advancing media freedom in these countries. The project collects, analyses and publicises limitations, threats and violations that affect journalists as they do their job, and advocates for greater press freedom in these countries and raises alerts at the international level.
The project builds on Index on Censorship’s 4.5 years monitoring media freedom in 43 European countries, as part of Mapping Media Freedom platform.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Case studies: Egregious physical violence” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”107961″ img_size=”full”][vc_custom_heading text=”Vadim Kharchenko” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 1 June, Vadim Kharchenko, a Krasnodar-based blogger and author of Lichnoe Mneniye (“Personal Opinion”) YouTube channel was assaulted and shot by two unknown men, which he reported in a video posted to his blog. About two weeks before the incident, he had received an anonymous call from an individual, who introduced himself as a policeman willing to provide evidence that local policemen had tortured detainees and fabricated criminal cases against innocent people. Kharchenko agreed to meet the man, who told him that he had to urgently leave town and could only meet near the airport in the late evening. However, no one came to the meeting. On the way back to his car, Kharchenko heard someone call his name and turned around. He heard two gunshots. When he ran towards the shooter and wrestled him to the ground, another person stabbed him in the liver and right arm. When Kharchenko tried to fight the second attacker, the first shot him in the back. Both attackers fled, shouting “Vadim, leave [the town]”. Kharchenko then went to a hospital and documented his injuries – three gunshot wounds, two stab wounds and a concussion.
The Krasnodar police said they were looking into the incident. Kharchenko is now recovering and undergoing treatment to restore movement in his right hand. He crowdfunded for medical expenses on his channel, which enabled him to travel to a Moscow clinic for treatment.
Kharchenko believes the attack was motivated by the content of his YouTube channel, but does not know who was behind the attack. His channel criticises local authorities, reports and comments on protests and detention of activists, and conducts investigations into alleged abuse of power by the police.
In summer 2018, Kharchenko lost his job at a private security firm because of his blogging activity, and his car was set on fire. In 2017 he was assaulted twice: first, he was hit by a car; second, he was hit in the head with a metal tire lever and stabbed with a 4-inch nail by an unknown man. Neither attacker was found.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”107963″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Boris Usahakov” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 14 March Boris Usahakov, a coordinator of Gulagu.net project which exposes cases of torture, survived an attempt on his life in the city of Vladimir. Head of the project Vladimir Osechkin reported the attack in a video posted to the Gulagu.net website.
According to Osechkin, Ushakov was returning home from a store when he saw a silhouette in a dark alley. When the man saw Ushakov, he drew a gun from inside his coat and aimed at him. Ushakov, who had received death threats before (the police ignored his reports), immediately began running away from the gunman and heard gunshots. He was able to hide in an apartment building and call the police. Instead of a police squad, an ambulance arrived and attempted to take Ushakov to a psychiatric hospital. The plan failed, as Ushakov was on the phone with his colleague, who stated loudly that she was recording the conversation and would bring the police malpractice to public attention. The police arrived soon after, but did not examine the premises and refused to investigate the crime scene.
Ushakov reported on dozens of cases of police brutality and torture in prisons of Vladimir region for Gulagu.net. On 2 April, Ushakov was arrested after being questioned by police about the attack, and held in police custody. He told his colleagues that the policemen discussed planting drugs on him. He was later released, likely because of public outcry around the case.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”107964″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Vasily Utkin” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 3 April, sports journalist Vasily Utkin was assaulted with tear gas by an unknown individual, he reported on his Telegram channel. The attack took place late in the evening after the training session of the amateur football team Egrisi, where Utkin is a frequent guest. A young man in a grey hoodie approached Utkin as he walked to his car and sprayed him in the face with tear gas. The assailant also filmed the attack with his smartphone, “for the accountability record”, Utkin said.
“There is only one reason and only two people who would like to organise this. I was talking about it in the last episode of my show”, Utkin said, referring to his YouTube show Football Club. In the last episode, he discussed so-called Aguzarov-gate – the scheme in which Alan Aguzarov, the personal lawyer of the head coach of the Russian national football team, Stanislav Cherchesov, used his connections to Cherchesov to sign football players up for contracts, promising selection to the national team.
Utkin decided against going to the police to report the assault, and said it would simply be a waste of time. This was not the first attack on Utkin — in 2001, he was stabbed twice in the back with a screwdriver by an unknown assailant. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Journalists face perils when covering protests” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Russia is infamous for its violent treatment of protestors. Journalists have found that their press credentials do not protect them.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 1 May at least two journalists and one blogger were detained while covering a sanctioned opposition rally in Saint Petersburg, according to Zona.Media and OVD-Info. This included YouTube blogger Nikita Zabzanov, who was forcefully arrested and had his camera confiscated. He was later released with no charges. Freelance photojournalist Georgiy Markov and Oleg Nasonov, a photojournalist with St. Petersburg-based online news outlet Dva Stula, were also detained despite identifying themselves as members of the press. Makarov was assaulted by the police during his arrest. According to Makarov, he was struck in the ribs and head with rubber batons, and his arm was bleeding. He was held at a police station for two and a half hours without any charges, and was later hospitalised. A total of 131 people were detained at demonstrations across 11 Russian cities on the same day.
On 14 May Anna Mayorova, a photographer with Ura.ru news agency, was attacked with tear gas while covering protests against the construction of a church in a public park in Ekaterinburg, Ura.ru reported. Mayorova did not see who sprayed tear gas at the crowd, but noted it was one of the “ripped fighters” who arrived at the scene and confronted the activists. The police did not catch the perpetrator. Mayorova and numerous other people at the protest were injured by the tear gas.
On 15 May another Ura.ru photographer, Vladimir Zhabrikov, was kicked by a policeman, who told him to “take away his lenses”. Zhabrikov had a press badge on him.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Journalists in Russia are frequently assaulted while working on stories” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Government officials and private security often target the journalists investigating them.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”107566″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The story of Meduza special reporter Ivan Golunov received media coverage around the world. Golunov was detained in Moscow on 6 June on suspicion of drug dealing, an accusation that the Kremlin later admitted had been entirely fabricated. He was stopped on the street by several policemen, who searched his backpack and claimed to have discovered a package with an unknown substance. One more package was reported to have been found in Golunov’s apartment. Golunov denied all accusations, and insisted that the drugs had been planted.
When Golunov spoke to his lawyer the following day, the latter discovered that Golunov had been bruised and injured. According to the journalist, he was threatened, punched and kicked while being interrogated at the police station. He was denied an ambulance.
The situation drew massive attention throughout Russia, with hundreds of people, many of them members of the press, protesting in front of the prosecutor’s office in Moscow alone. Journalists from a variety of outlets, from partisan to state media, all condemned Golunov’s arrest and called for a fair investigation and trial. On 11 June, Golunov was released and all charges against him dropped in an uncommon victory for Russian civil society. The investigation is ongoing, but the tide has turned against the police officers who initiated the arrest.
On 27 May, Ivan Litomin, reporter of state-owned TV channel Rossiya 24, was physically assaulted and thrown to the ground. His attacker was Sergey Zaytsev, head of the Shirinsky district in the Khakasia region, Rossiya 24 reported.
Accompanied by a film crew of two people, Litomin set out to interview Zaytsev, investigating the discrepancy between the official’s luxurious mansion and the poor-quality houses provided by the government to those who lost their homes in wildfires in 2015. Zaytsev behaved aggressively toward Litomin and tried to take away his microphone. He then grabbed Lidomin and threw him to the ground, shouting “Go away, I’m telling you, get out of here”. Zaytsev’s aides pushed Lidomin out of the office and tried to prevent the cameramen from filming the incident.
After the video of Lidomin’s attack went viral, Evgeny Revenko, secretary of the ruling political party, United Russia — of which Zaytsev is a member — publicly apologised. United Russia also expelled Zaytsev. The state Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Zaytsev on charges of obstruction of journalistic activity.
Zaytsev called the incident “a planned provocation,” and claimed that Litomin fell by himself rather than being pushed. “They broke into my office outside of working hours and started calling me a corrupt thief, saying that I had a criminal past and asking if I was ashamed of being the head of the district. It lasted ten minutes. It was impossible to talk to the journalist. I tried to push him out of my office. He was actively protesting. How can it be an assault, when three big men broke into my office, where I was alone, and two of them were physically stronger than me?”, Zaytsev told state-operated news source RIA Novosti. Zaytsev filed a complaint with the police, attempting to prosecute Litomin for “offence of a representative of the government”.
On 20 March, three reporters for the media outlet Rosderzhava, Andrey Oryol, Alexander Dorogov and Pavel Tsibulyak, were physically assaulted while trying to investigate inside an office building, Mediazona reported. The reporters accompanied an ex-employee of PromMash Test company to the company’s offices to investigate the circumstances of her firing. They were met with hostility and physical violence. Over fifteen of the boss’s deputies started beating the reporters, following them to the street as they fled and continuing to assault them. The attackers took their cameras, phones, documents and wallets. Oryol and Dorogov ended up in the hospital.
Deputy chief editor of Rosderzhava Yan Katelevskiy told Mediazona that there had been no investigation of the incident. In fact, the journalists themselves could be prosecuted, as PromMash Test filed a lawsuit against them for hooliganism. Oryol has since left the country for rehabilitation. Katelevskiy insists that PromMash Test’s CEO Alexey Filatchev and his brother, both ex-FSB employees, took part in the beating.
Boris Ivanov, a YouTube blogger and reporter with Rosderzhava who filmed the bloodied car and patch of ground near PromMash Test’s office after the incident took place, was detained near his home in Moscow on 4 June, OVD-Info reported. According to Ivanov, the policemen did not identify themselves or explain the reason for his arrest. They twisted the journalist’s arm, took away his phone, and brought him to Tverskoe police station. After the arrival of Ivanov’ lawyer, the policemen released him without any charges.
On 20 March, Ilya (his last name was not disclosed), a part-time local correspondent for 47news, was assaulted by a security guard at Gazprom’s Sotsinvest construction site, 47news reported. The incident took place near Lesnoye village in Leningrad oblast, where the company is constructing a large logistics center. Ilya was assigned to film the premises using a drone. He was stopped by a security guard near the entrance. The guard called for reinforcements, took away Ilya’s equipment, hit him in the face, and threatened to “fucking drown” him. The police were called to the incident. They took away Ilya’s drone and recorded in their report that the attack came from “an unidentified person”. Gazprom provided no commentary. The logistics center is reported to have cost 15 billion rubles, three times the proposed budget, according to a recent expert report from Fontanka.ru. 47news vowed to publish a new investigation about Gazprom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”“Legislation is only effective in a society governed by the rule of law“” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
David Filipov (Photo: Tufts)
Press freedom in Russia is largely defined by practice, David Filipov, a former Moscow bureau chief for The Washington Post, told Index on Censorship.
“Lots of places have good press laws. But legislation is only effective in a society governed by the rule of law. Russia is not one of those,” he said. Countries like Russia have the ability to limit the freedoms embedded in their constitutions through legislation passed by rubber stamp parliaments, and root out or weaken civil society institutions that ensure the protection of citizens from abuse by government.
Russia’s legislation — examples of which the Monitoring and Advocating Project reported on in its previous report on Russia — curbs the reporting of investigative journalists in particular. While there are many intrepid reporters in Russia, “the state is constantly focused on an effort to root out media outlets that produce great investigative reporting, and replace that with statist, loyalist noise,” Filipov said.
The current media environment is vastly different from the 1990s, when the Russians had “a brief taste of US-style media.” Filipov said that when media is operated as a business rather than an “affair of the state”, reporters can investigate and report. When media becomes an instrument of the authoritarian state, reporters can only parrot the party line. “Unfortunately, in Russia, and, increasingly, in various other states, authoritarian leaders have latched on to the idea that controlling media means prolonging power”, he said.
Filipov emphasised that authoritarian states like Russia have a constant need to restate their legitimacy: “Why are we forced to take harsh measures? Because our freedom is in danger! We are for freedom! But there are enemies who would take it away!”
He recounted meeting a member of NOD (natsional’noye osvoboditel’noye dvizheniye, or “National Liberation Movement.”) in the “protest pit”, the only place near the Sochi Olympics where people were allowed to demonstrate. “The sole protester was telling me she supported ‘Russia’s sovereignty’ and opposed ‘attempts from outside forces to take it away’, and therefore supported Putin,” he said, calling it a bland version of the mantra he heard at the NOD rallies, where the effort to dismantle “Russian sovereignty” is described as a foreign-inspired aggression against ‘the real’ Russia, which needs to be met with popular force. “And therefore, if we can show, using our twisted logic, that a certain journalist is an aggressor, then that ‘aggressor’ needs to be met with force.”
Filipov told Index that since all civil society protections against the abuse of power by pro-government mobs have been subverted, such as the courts, co-opted, such as human rights ombudspersons, or dissolved and officially discredited, such as NGOs, there is no one left to properly call out the abuses by pro-government non-official entities. “But if someone brings it up to Putin during his press conferences, he can say, ‘Give me the names of these people, I will investigate. We cannot have such abuses in our country”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Press Freedom Violations in Russia” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Number and types of incidents recorded between 1 February and 30 June 2019
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0
Death/Killing
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20
Physical Assault/Injury
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32
Arrest/Detention/Interrogation
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29
Criminal Charges/Fines/Sentences
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27
Intimidation
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16
Blocked Access
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16
Attack to Property
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23
Subpoena/Court Order/Lawsuits
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15
Legal Measures/Legislation
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0
Offine Harassment
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0
Online Harassment
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4
DDoS/Hacking/Doxing
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22
Censorship
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175
Total
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Source of the incidents recorded between 1 February and 30 June 2019
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10
Employer/Publisher/Colleague(s)
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60
Police/State Security
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7
Private Security
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
27
Court/Judicial
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48
Government official(s)/State Agency/Political Party
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7
Corporation
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18
Known private individual(s)
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0
Another Media Outlet
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0
Criminal Organisation
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17
Unknown
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25 Jul 19 | Media Freedom, Monitoring and Advocating Coverage, News and features, Turkey Reports
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In Turkey, the government uses national security and terror legislation to censor journalists. Arrests, detentions and trials of media workers are frequent.
Turkey’s freedom of the press was curbed after the attempted military coup in July 2016, when over 150 media outlets were shut down. Many journalists working in Kurdish territory were subject to physical violence and threats, and Rohat Aktaş, a journalist who covered the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the town of Cizre, was killed.
Physical attacks on media workers have become rare in recent years. However, Index on Censorship’s Monitoring and Advocating Media Freedom project documented seven assaults in Turkey in May, and another one in June 2019. This surge has raised concerns about the continuing pressure on media professionals in the country.
Özgün Özçer is a Turkey researcher for the monitoring project partner organisation Platform for Independent Journalism (P24). He attributes the physical violence to internal divisions within the nationalist and conservative political movements ahead of the second round of the mayoral elections in Istanbul, which took place in late June.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship’s Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom project documents, analyses, and publicises threats, limitations and violations related to media freedom in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, in order to identify opportunities for advancing media freedom in these countries. The project collects, analyses and publicises limitations, threats and violations that affect journalists as they do their jobs. Its staff also advocate for greater press freedom in these countries and raises alerts at the international level.
The project builds on Index on Censorship’s 4.5 years monitoring media freedom in 43 European countries, as part of Mapping Media Freedom platform.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Yavuz Selim Demirağ assaulted outside his home” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”108007″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 10 May, journalist Yavuz Selim Demirağ, a prominent columnist for the nationalist newspaper Yeniçağ, sustained serious injuries from an assault in front of his house in Ankara.
The attack took place late in the evening, when Demirağ was returning home after hosting a political show on a private TV broadcaster. The assailants, a group of seven men, fled the scene in a car after beating Demirağ with baseball bats.
Demirağ’s relatives took him to the hospital. Six people were arrested during the following week in connection with the attack, but all were released on 13 May after giving their statements to a prosecutor.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”İdris Özyol attacked outside local newspaper” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”108008″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 15 May, a group of three unidentified assailants attacked veteran journalist İdris Özyol in the coastal city of Antalya. Özyol was hospitalised following the attack, which took place in the evening in front of the office of the local newspaper, Akdeniz’de Yeni Yüzyıl, where he worked. He suffered injuries to his head and left arm.
Özyol’s assailants were arrested on 17 May. Özyol said that one of his attackers, who he identified as Taner Canatek, was the driver of Talu Bilgili, a prominent local politician from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). MHP allied itself with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) during the general and presidential elections in 2018, and the local elections in March 2019. Özyol claimed that Canatek had worked for an AKP candidate during the local election campaign, and had visited the newspaper’s office with Bilgili, during which they had a heated exchange over a critical article by Özyol. Journalist associations condemned the attack.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Tuüçe Ünsal and Serkan Çinier attacked at Ankara cemetery” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 16 May, the crew of conservative news channel Beyaz TV was attacked in Beypazarı district of Ankara, online news website T24 reported. Reporter Tuüçe Ünsal and cameraman Serkan Çinier were harassed and battered while filming a news story about the rundown state of a local cemetery. There they were assaulted by a group of people, allegedly supporters of the city’s new opposition mayor Mansur Yavaş.
Çinier was taken to the hospital following the attack. At least one of the perpetrators was arrested.
Mansur Yavaş had served as a mayor of a small Turkish town for 10 years before his first run for the Turkish capital’s mayorship in 2014. Beyaz TV is an Ankara-based news channel founded by Osman Gökçek, the son of former Ankara mayor Melih Gökçek.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Ergin Çevik tracked and beaten” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”108023″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 20 May 2019, three people attacked Ergin Çevik, editor-in-chief of Antalya-based news portal Güney Haberci, in Antalya near a restaurant in the Aksu district. They approached Çevik, asked him if he was Ergin Çevik, and, upon confirmation, attacked him. The beating lasted several minutes, after which the attackers fled the scene.
Çevik told Evrensel that the assailants had come to his office before the attack and spoken with his secretary. Their visit was caught on camera, and the police are now working with the footage to identify the attackers. Çevik was reportedly assaulted because of his recent investigation of unearned income in the municipality of Aksu. In the article, Çevik called on the mayor of Aksu, Halil Şahin, who was re-elected on 31 March, to address the allegations.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Hakan Denizli shot in the leg” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”108010″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 24 May, Hakan Denizli, founder of a local newspaper Egemen, was shot outside of his home in the southern province of Adana in front of his 4-year old granddaughter. “I got in the car and the window was open. They came, shot me in the leg and ran away”, Denizli told Arab News. He was immediately hospitalised. The gunman escaped and could not be identified, though the police launched a search.
This is the 29th attack on Denizli throughout his career.
“This brutal attack against Hakan Denizli–the fourth assault on a journalist in two weeks–appears to signal an alarming cycle of violence against critical voices in Turkey,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said, as quoted on CPJ’s website. “We call on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to strongly condemn the attacks and to instruct his law enforcement to bring those responsible to justice and to ensure the safety of journalists”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Sabahattin Önkibar assaulted” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”108011″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 25 May, Odatv web portal columnist Sabahattin Önkibar was attacked by a group of unknown individuals near his home in Ankara. Three people got out of two cars parked nearby and attacked Önkibar with their fists, daily Odatv reported. Önkibar filed a complaint with the police about the attack. He became the fifth journalist to be targeted in Turkey within two weeks.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Hasan Ceyhan beaten up by police” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 28 May, Hasan Ceyhan, a distributor for the pro-Kurdish newspaper Yeni Yaşam, was beaten by security and police at a metro station in Istanbul, Mezopotamya Agency reported. Ceyhan, who is epileptic, fainted in the metro and was taken out of the train at the central Gayrettepe station. An ambulance was called while he was still unconscious at the station.
Ceyhan told Mezopotamya Agency that the security and police officers at the station checked his bags and saw the copies of the newspaper. They took him to a room inside the station, he said, where one security officer and two police officers beat and insulted him for an hour. They let him go after they forced him to sign a piece of paper stating that he would not file a complaint. Ceyhan said he got a medical report from the hospital and was planning to file a formal complaint to the police. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Murat Alan attacked leaving mosque” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 14 June Murat Alan, news editor of the ultraconservative daily Yeni Akit, was attacked in Gaziosmanpaşa district of Istanbul, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported. Four people armed with baseball bats and knives attacked Alan as he came out of a mosque after Friday Prayers with his 6-year-old son, a family member and his two children.
“I said ‘I have children, I have children with me, don’t do this’”, Alan told AA. As he grappled with the attacker who had a knife, one with a baseball bat started hitting him on the head. The assailants were scared off by the worshippers.
Alan received a head injury as a result of the attack, and was taken to a hospital for treatment. The attackers were caught and detained by the police. A week later, they were released by the court, NTV reported. Prosecutors charged the four men with “actual bodily harm” following a forensics report.
Presidential spokesperson Fahrettin Altun condemned the attack. Alan was under investigation for allegedly “insulting the commanders of Turkish Armed Forces.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”“Impossible to talk about democracy in a society where there is no freedom of the press“” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Turkey Journalists’ Society (TGC) condemned the series of attacks in a statement.
TGC said, “We expect that the impunity imposed on all attacks on newspapers and journalists will not be applied in this case. It is impossible to talk about democracy in a society where there is no freedom of the press. Social peace cannot be achieved in an environment where newspapers and journalists are constantly targeted. Attacks on the press are direct attacks on the public’s right to receive information and learn the truth. We want those responsible to be found and punished as soon as possible”.
A letter signed by 20 international organisations–led by the International Press Institute and Committee to Protect Journalists–following the attacks on Demirağ and Özyol on May 16 called on Erdoğan to condemn the assaults and make sure that the perpetrators are brought to justice, reported Hurriyet Daily News. “Attacks like those against Demirağ and Özyol, if left unpunished, will have a serious chilling effect on the country’s journalists and further strengthen a climate of fear, which seriously hinders Turkey’s credibility as a democracy,” read the letter.
“A brief analysis of these attacks reveals that the frequency of such moves against journalists increase at times when the country passes through politically-troubled straits and is open to provocations. Besides journalists, prominent politicians from different lines become targets of such physical attacks at these times. A lynch attempt attack against Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu by a nationalist crowd during a funeral of a fallen soldier in early April should be interpreted within this frame.
“More striking is the fact that this increase in attacks against dissident journalists comes on the eve of the Istanbul election rerun, which has fuelled political tension once again following the cancellation of March 31 polls for Turkey’s largest metropolis. Although there is no direct link between these mentioned attacks on journalists and Istanbul’s renewed elections, an increase in the tension would further complicate the political climate”.
“Having monitored media freedom issues and impunity towards crime committed against media representatives for 25 years, this is the first time I noticed that a government circle has provoked a hostile climate for journalists, at this extent, kept observing intimidations and violence against ‘recalcitrant’ media representatives”, Erol Önderoğlu, a Turkey Representative for RSF who is facing trial, told Index.
“President Erdogan, the AK Party and the Nationalist Movement Party circles remained silent, although the first attack occurred on May 11, and everybody knew it would be contagious. In fact, the government was complicit in allowing MHP militants to silence criticism coming from nationalist or secular parts of the society. It is not a coincidence, then, that two parliament enquiry demands submitted by Iyi Party (Good Party, born from a division within the MHP) and by the main opposition party CHP aiming to investigate this hostile environment for journalists have both been rejected by AKP and MHP votes. Since May 11, no less (sic) than 10 journalists, columnists and reporters were physically attacked in this post-local-election process. All perpetrators were arrested but released pending trial, except for one case in which four men involved in a gun attack were sent to jail. The question is, how shall we expect to fight against impunity if the government itself is clearly involved in the propagation of violence?”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Press Freedom Violations in Turkey” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Number and types of incidents recorded between 1 February and 30 June 2019
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1558428123542{background-color: #f4f4f4 !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Death/Killing
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
5
Physical Assault/Injury
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
7
Arrest/Detention/Interrogation
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
96
Criminal Charges/Fines/Sentences
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Intimidation
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Blocked Access
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1558428157046{background-color: #f4f4f4 !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Attack to Property
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
3
Subpoena/Court Order/Lawsuits
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Legal Measures/Legislation
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Offine Harassment
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Online Harassment
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
DDoS/Hacking/Doxing
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1558428169374{background-color: #f4f4f4 !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
1
Censorship
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
114
Total
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_column_text]
Source of the incidents recorded between 1 February and 30 June 2019
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1558428178637{background-color: #f4f4f4 !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Employer/Publisher/Colleague(s)
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
7
Police/State Security
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Private Security
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
95
Court/Judicial
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
2
Government official(s)/State Agency/Political Party
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
2
Corporation
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1558428186205{background-color: #f4f4f4 !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Known private individual(s)
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Another Media Outlet
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
0
Criminal Organisation
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
6
Unknown
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”35195″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
