Inside Turkey’s media battleground
Threats, raids and arrests: Turkey intensifies pressure on the press; Plus, Bosnia’s divided media.
Raids, arrests, threats and deportation – journalism is becoming increasingly dangerous in Turkey as the government clamps down on the media covering stories it wants ignored.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused of a heavy-handed approach with journalists after one of the country’s largest media houses – Dogan Media Group – was investigated for alleged “terrorism propaganda.”
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The probe came on the heels of the Nokta news magazine being raided and it’s latest edition being banned; and three journalists from the New York-based Vice News being arrested in Diyarbakir for quote “working for a terrorist organisation”.
At a time when entire cities in the southeast – Diyarbakir and Cizre – have been placed under curfew, Erdogan’s latest crackdown has made a military offensive against Kurdish separatists increasingly difficult to cover.
Discussing Turkey’s deteriorating state of press freedom are: Idil Engindeniz, a media scholar at Galatasaray University; Bekir Hazar, the host at TV show Yaz Boz; Cevheri Guven, Editor at Nokta magazine; and Murat Bayram, a reporter for Kurdistan 24.
Other media stories on our radar this week: journalists keep getting arrested and detained in Thailand; Charlie Hebdo’s controversial cartoon poking fun at the death of Alan Kurdi; and the murder of a journalist in Colombia – that was caught on camera.
Bosnia’s divided media
Twenty years ago this December, a three-year-long civil war ended in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a complex power sharing arrangement that split the country in two.
The two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina administered by Bosnian Muslims; and the Republika Srpska, administered by Serbs; created a complicated political structure that also divided the media landscape.
In an effort to transcend the ethnic divide, journalists are banding together to combat a range of political and economic pressures.
The Listening Post’s Flo Phillips reports from Sarajevo on their efforts and the problems Bosnian journalists face on a daily basis.
Published On 19 Sep 2015