Author: Serdar Imren

A new report from the International Press Institute (IPI) has delivered a damning verdict on Turkey’s justice system, confirming what journalists have known for years: the country’s courtrooms are no longer places of law, but assembly lines for political repression, systematically designed to silence and punish critical voices. The joint report with Turkey’s Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), which monitored 38 separate cases involving 159 journalists, reveals a chilling landscape where the very act of journalism is treated as terrorism. An overwhelming 85 percent of the hearings involved dubious terrorism-related offenses. The “evidence” presented in these show trials consists…

Intro Media Penalized Amid Sustained Pressure Against Critical Journalism

The physical “caliphate” of the Islamic State (ISIS), the most barbaric terrorist organization of our time, may lie in ruins across the blood-soaked lands of Syria and Iraq, but its ghosts refuse to be exorcised. And now, one of those ghosts has returned to deliver a confession that threatens to implicate the highest office of a NATO member state in a pact with the devil. In an explosive testimony obtained by researchers from the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), a high-ranking ISIS militant, described as the group’s “ambassador to Turkey,” has laid bare the details of…

The Erdoğan government’s systematic effort to control the public narrative and silence dissent reached staggering new heights in 2018, with Turkish authorities censoring at least 2,950 online news articles, effectively erasing them from the digital record, according to a comprehensive new media monitoring report. This alarming figure reveals only a fraction of a multi-front assault on the free flow of information. The state’s censorship machine worked relentlessly throughout the year, also blocking access to 77 tweets, 22 Facebook posts, and 10 entire websites. Major platforms that served as a source of independent knowledge, most notably Wikipedia, remained entirely banned, plunging…

The Turkish government’s sweeping campaign to criminalize criticism has claimed two more victims, as gendarmerie forces raided the homes of two men in Tekirdağ province and a court ordered their immediate arrest. Their alleged crime, now a routine charge used to silence dissent across the country, was “insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan” in posts made on social media. This incident is a stark illustration of the systematic nature of the state’s assault on free expression. The pre-dawn raids and the swiftness of the court’s decision to imprison the men underscore a chilling reality: the judicial process is no longer about…

In a staggering display of autocratic overreach on foreign soil, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used a state visit to Germany to personally defame one of Turkey’s most celebrated journalists, Can Dündar, labeling him a “convicted spy” before the world’s press. But from his exile in Berlin, Dündar refused to be silenced, issuing a powerful ultimatum that laid bare the president’s lies: “Prove I am a spy, and I will quit my profession forever.” The dramatic confrontation unfolded during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Erdoğan, hoping to use the international stage to legitimize his domestic war on…

The Turkish government’s relentless campaign to crush dissent has officially entered a new, sweeping phase, with the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issuing detention warrants in a massive, years-long investigation targeting activist social media accounts. This is not a targeted operation against a specific threat; it is a digital witch hunt designed to intimidate and silence any citizen who dares to organize, protest, or even question the state’s narrative online. The scope of the investigation reveals the regime’s deep-seated paranoia. The dragnet encompasses everything from criticism of Turkey’s military offensive in Afrin, Syria, to posts about workers’ rights demonstrations. Most…

In Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey, even the notes of a piano can be deemed an act of rebellion. The arrest of Dengin Ceyhan, a talented young pianist and university conservatory teacher, for allegedly “insulting the president” on social media is the latest, poignant proof that the regime’s war on free thought knows no bounds. When artists are silenced, it is not just an individual who is arrested; it is the soul and conscience of a nation that is being imprisoned. Ceyhan’s “crime” was not one of violence or conspiracy. His true offense was his history of dissent. He was a…

Having successfully suffocated most of its domestic independent media, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is now systematically exporting its war on truth, turning its sights on the last remaining window for the world to see into Turkey: the foreign press. The weapon of choice is no longer just the courts, but the seemingly mundane press accreditation card, which has been transformed from a bureaucratic formality into a political leash. For international correspondents based in Turkey, the rules of the game have been dangerously rewritten. The process for renewing or obtaining press credentials has become a gauntlet of intimidation, with authorities openly…

In the wake of the failed 2016 coup, a palpable sense of fear has enveloped President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration. While a robust response to the plotters is expected, the government’s subsequent actions suggest a deeper, more alarming strategy: the creation of parallel security structures loyal not to the state, but to one man. This path, critics warn, is dangerously paving the way for potential civil conflict. The paranoia within the presidential palace has reached extreme levels. One of Erdoğan’s chief advisors, Yiğit Bulut, publicly accused foreign chefs featured on Turkish television of being spies, claiming their culinary tours of…