Turkish media and journalists are being increasingly threatened by far-right politicians in the countdown to the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Friday as it condemned the attempts.
Fear is mounting that the“ threats from ultra-nationalist circles will open the way to another spiral of violence against outspoken journalists, as it did in the 2019 local elections,’’ Erol Onderoglu, RSF representative in Turkey, said, noting that violence and threats have no place in a democratic electoral process.
In recent months, the ruling alliance of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its junior coalition partner, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and figures linked to the parties have targeted news outlets, while a nationalist Democrat Party (DP) MP attacked journalist following heated exchange during a TV programme.
Meanwhile, following a new digital censorship legislation introduced to Turkish parliament in May by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP to criminalise “disinformation, ”Turkey launched a new wave of arrests targeting journalists.
RSF highlighted how Interior minister Süleyman Soylu earlier this month launched a verbal attack on the left-wing daily newspaper BirGün, accusing the publication of being “the press mouthpiece” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group that is designated a terrorist organisation by Ankara and has been at war for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey for 40 years.
The AKP–MHP leadership also threatened the HaberTürk TV channel earlier this month, over comments made by former opposition MP Berhan Şimşek. Şimşek had said the dismissed head of the Students Examination Centre (ÖYSM) had links to the far-right MHP, while voicing his displeasure with the growing influence of religious groups in the country.
The former lawmaker was accused of being “hostile to the Presidential Alliance,” and was openly threatened by MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, who said Şimşek “will pay for this.”
Recalling that the AKP-MHP Alliance’s defeat in the March 2019 local elections was followed by months of violence against opposition journalists, RSF said the 2023 elections are also signalling tensions.
Turkey is bracing for the polls as “several polling companies say the president is running behind this opposition alliance. This is unprecedented in 20 years of rule by Erdogan,” RSF said.
Ahval