The Free Journalists' Initiative (Özgür Gazeteciler İnisiyatifi, ÖGİ) has published a report on the violations of rights in the field of freedom of the press in Turkey for the month of November. The initiative recalled the bombing of the Özgür Ülke newspaper in Istanbul 25 years ago and explained the situation last month as follows: "Media workers had to struggle with countless problems. Intimidation methods such as house searches, arrests, detentions, convictions, attacks and more were used against journalists. To sum up, we can say that journalists have experienced everything but freedom of the press in the past month".

 

The initiative described the pressure against journalists as systematic and continued: "It is no longer possible to speak of freedom of the press in Turkey. The government coalition of the AKP and MHP constantly preaches its paradigm "One fatherland, one flag, one language" and works accordingly also on a unification of the press.

 

According to the ÖGI balance sheet, twelve journalists were detained in November, four were jailed, eight had their apartments raided by the police. Five journalists were attacked, one was investigated, two were sued. The trial of 51 journalists continued and 12 journalists were sentenced to 45 years imprisonment

 

ÖGİ stated that a total of 139 journalists are currently behind bars.