Amnesty International: Situation Of Journalists In Turkey Is Matter Of Concern

Amnesty International (AI) has released a statement saying the “situation of journalists in Turkey is a matter of concern,” after government-led raids targeted the headquarters of the parent company of several independent media outlets on Tuesday.

The statement from Milena Buyum, the Turkey coordinator for AI, underlined that journalists in Turkey cannot perform their professions and that the situation in Turkey for media personnel is getting worse. She said that journalists should be able to do their jobs.

Auditors accompanied by a police escort conducted a raid on the offices of Koza İpek Holding in Ankara on Tuesday morning while simultaneous raids on subsidiaries of the group were being carried out elsewhere.

The Turkish dailies Bugün and Millet, TV stations Bugün TV and Kanaltürk and the website BGNNews.com are all subsidiaries of the Koza İpek media group.

Pointing out that the oppression that started during the Gezi Park protests such as the restrictions towards the right to protest, the heavy-handed use of force by police officers and limitations on social media usage, Buyum said foreign journlists are also targets, referring to the British journlists who were arrested on Monday for “aiding a terrorist organization.”

The Gezi Park protests, the largest in the nation's history, erupted in the summer of 2013 over government plans to destroy a park located in the Taksim district of İstanbul and build Ottoman-style military barracks in its place. The protest then spread across the nation and attracted worldwide media coverage and elicited criticism from many of Turkey's Western allies including the US and the European Union.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)