Terror propaganda, insulting president most common charges in 'silencing criticism'

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The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV/HRFT) has released an information note titled "Silencing Criticism," which examines the violations of freedom of expression between 2015-2019 in Turkey.

Based on the TİHV Documentation Center data, the report found 2,779 violations against freedom of expression in five years. Some 6,479 people were detained and 2,801 were arrested because of these violations.

In 1,372 cases, 727 people were sentenced to a total of 27,448 years in prison. Also, 184 press and broadcast outlets were closed down.

İstanbul, Diyarbakır and the capita city of Ankara were the provinces with the highest number of violations.

Three Kurdish-majority provinces, Dersim, Diyarbakır and Şırnak, had the highest number of violations in proportion to the population.

Insulting the president

A significant part of the charges presented as grounds for violations of freedom of expression consisted of "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" (476), "insulting the president" (346), "attempting to overthrow the constitutional order" (165) and "being a member of a terrorist organization."

The report also noted the sharp increase in the number of cases for "insulting the president" after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's election in 2014. The number of investigations for this offense increased 47 times, and criminal cases increased 40 times during this period, according to the Ministry of Justice figures.

The media under siege

In the five-year period, 54 percent of the violations of freedom of expression were directly or indirectly related to the media, according to the TİHV report.

Out of 184 media outlets that were closed, 170 were closed not by court orders but by statutory decrees during the state of emergency. The decisions of the closure of 21 outlets were later reversed with new statutory decrees.

Some 1,118 press members were detained in five years as a result of 287 police raids and 146 police interventions into events.

In five years, 281 media employees were arrested and 311 media employees were sentenced to a total of 1,592 years and 7 months in prison.

Killed and kidnapped journalists

At least 23 journalists and five newspapers were targeted in attacks by civilians in five years.

An employee of the Kurdish Azadiya Welat newspaper, Barış Boyraz, and Zeynep Tunçel, a distributor for Evrensel newspaper, were kidnapped in Ankara and İzmir, respectively. (HA/VK)