TÜRKİYE ORTA ASYA HABER KKUORDİNATÖRÜ

IFJ-INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF JOURNALISTS President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led parliamentary coalition government exercise tight control over the media, courts, and most state institutions, regularly harassing or punishing perceived government critics. Political divisions and infighting within Turkey's highest courts, as well as growing reports of corruption in the state and judiciary, have further undermined human rights and the rule of law. Authorities, including courts, continued to ignore or reject binding rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) accusing Turkey of violations, leading to the continuation of serious violations. The cost of living crisis persisted into 2024; the Turkish Statistical Institute reported an annual inflation rate of 47 percent in November. In the local elections in March, the largest opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), achieved its largest gain over Erdoğan's AKP in over two decades. It secured 37.8 percent of the vote nationwide compared to the AKP's 35 percent and retained its seats in Istanbul and Ankara. Freedom of Expression State control of the media extends to the public broadcaster TRT and the public news agency Anadolu Ajansı (Anatolian Agency). The majority of television news channels and print media are pro-government. Independent media in Turkey operate primarily through online platforms. Authorities regularly order the blocking of websites and platforms or the removal of critical online content or negative reporting about public officials, businesses, the president and his family, and members of the judiciary. The reasons cited are usually unspecified threats to national security or public order or violations of personal rights. In decisions published in November 2023 and January 2024, the Constitutional Court found that two articles of Internet Law No. 5651, which permit the blocking or removal of content on these grounds, violate the right to freedom of expression. The January ruling overturned the article on violations of personal rights. Courts often issue blocking orders for multiple accounts in one ruling. The Freedom of Expression Association's EngelliWeb project revealed that Turkey had blocked over a million websites since the introduction of the internet law in 2007 by the end of March. On August 2, Turkish officials blocked the entire Instagram platform for eight days without providing a reason after the presidential communications director criticized Meta's removal of messages of condolence for former Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed on July 31. The online news platforms Deutsche Welle and Voice of America have been indefinitely blocked in Turkey since June 2022 due to their refusal to obtain licenses. They oppose licensing on the grounds that they would be subject to arbitrary fines and sanctions, which the Turkish Broadcasting Regulatory Authority regularly imposes on anti-government online broadcasters. Journalists are regularly prosecuted under Turkish anti-terrorism law, as well as defamation and other laws. Kurdish journalists are disproportionately affected. In July, the trial of eleven Kurdish journalists in Ankara ended with eight of them being sentenced to six years and three months in prison for "membership in a terrorist organization." They have appealed the verdicts. The trial of 20 Kurdish journalists and media workers in Diyarbakır on the same charges continued. At the time of writing, at least 21 journalists and media workers were in pre-trial detention or serving prison sentences for terrorism-related offenses related to their journalistic activities or their association with the media. Freedom of Association and Assembly Thousands of people are imprisoned for alleged links to the movement of the late US cleric Fethullah Gülen, and they face investigations and unfair trials. The government considers the Gülen movement a terrorist organization responsible for the coup attempt of July 15, 2016. Many people have been sentenced to long and arbitrary prison terms without effective legal recourse following mass dismissals from the civil service and the judiciary. The Minister of Justice announced in July that 13,251 people in pre-trial detention and convicted individuals suspected of being members of the Gülen movement remained in detention.