Despite legal provisions, freedom of the press in Turkey has steadily deteriorated from 2010 onwards, with a precipitous decline following the attempted coup in July 2016. The Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has arrested hundreds of journalists, closed or taken over dozens of media outlets, and prevented journalists and their families from traveling. By some accounts, Turkey currently accounts for one-third of all journalists imprisoned around the world.
Since 2013, Freedom House ranks Turkey as "Not Free". In 2015 Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey at the 149th place out of over 180 countries, between Mexico and DR Congo, with a score of 44.16. In 2025, according to the same organisation 90% of the media is controlled by the government and Turkey ranks 159th out of 180 countries in terms freedom of press.
In the third quarter of 2015, the independent Turkish press agency Bianet recorded a strengthening of attacks on opposition media under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) interim government. Bianet's final 2015 monitoring report confirmed this trend and underlined that, once the AKP had regained a majority in parliament after the AKP interim government period, the Turkish government further intensified its pressure on the country's media.
According to Freedom House,
The government enacted new laws that expanded both the state's power to block websites and the surveillance capability of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Journalists faced unprecedented legal obstacles as the courts restricted reporting on corruption and national security issues. The authorities also continued to aggressively use the penal code, criminal defamation laws, and the antiterrorism law to crack down on journalists and media outlets.
Verbal attacks on journalists by senior politicians—including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the incumbent prime minister who was elected president in August—were often followed by harassment and even death threats against the targeted journalists on social media. Meanwhile, the government continued to use the financial and other leverage it holds over media owners to influence coverage of politically sensitive issues.
Several dozen journalists, including prominent columnists, lost their jobs as a result of such pressure during the year, and those who remained had to operate in a climate of increasing self-censorship and media polarization.
In 2012 and 2013 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Turkey as the worst journalist jailer in the world (ahead of Iran and China), with 49 journalists sitting in jail in 2012 and 40 in 2013. Twitter's 2014 Transparency Report showed that Turkey filed over five times more content removal requests to Twitter than any other country in the second half of 2014, with requests rising another 150% in 2015.
During its rule since 2002 the ruling AKP has gradually expanded its control over media. Today, numerous newspapers, TV channels and internet portals dubbed as Yandaş Medya ("Partisan Media") or Havuz Medyası ("Pool Media") continue their heavy pro-government propaganda.
Several media groups receive preferential treatment in exchange for AKP-friendly editorial policies. Some of these media organizations were acquired by AKP-friendly businesses or directly by Erdogan's own family through questionable funds and processes. Media not friendly to AKP, on the other hand, are threatened with intimidation, inspections and fines.
These media group owners face similar threats to their other businesses. An increasing number of columnists have been fired for criticizing the AKP leadership.
The AKP leadership has been criticized by multiple journalists over the years because of censorship.[excessive citations]
History
Regional censorship predates the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. On 15 February 1857, the Ottoman Empire issued law governing printing houses (Basmahane Nizamnamesi); books first had to be shown to the governor, who forwarded them to commission for education (Maarif Meclisi) and the police.
If no objection was made, the Sultan would then inspect them. Without censure from the Sultan books could not be legally issued. On 24 July 1908, at the beginning of the Second Constitutional Era, censorship was lifted; however, newspapers publishing stories that were deemed a danger to interior or exterior State security were closed.
Between 1909 and 1913 four journalists were killed—Hasan Fehmi, Ahmet Samim, Zeki Bey, and Hasan Tahsin (Silahçı).[dead link]
Following the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, the Sheikh Said rebellion broke out as part of the complex ethnic conflict that erupted with the creation of a secular Turkish nationalist identity that was rejected by many Kurds, who had long been loyal subjects of the Caliph. Sheikh Said, a Naqshbandi sheikh, accused Turkish nationalists of having "reduced the Caliph to the state of a parasite".
The uprising was crushed brutally and martial law was imposed on 25 February 1925. Disagreement in the ruling Republican People's Party ultimately favored more hardline measures and under İsmet İnönü's leadership, the Takrir-i Sükun Kanunu was proposed on 4 March 1925.
This law granted the government unchecked powers, and had a number of consequences including the closure of all newspapers except for Cumhuriyet and Hakimiyet-i Milliye (both were official or semi-official state publications).
The effect was to censor any criticism of the ruling party, and socialists and communists were arrested and tried by the Independence Tribunals that were established in Ankara under the law. Tevhid-i Efkar, Sebilürreşad, Aydınlık, Resimli Ay, and Vatan were among the newspapers closed and several journalists arrested and tried at the tribunals.
The tribunals also closed down the offices of opposition party Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası on 3 June 1925, under the pretext that their openly stated support for the protection of religious customs had contributed to the Sheikh Said rebellion.
During World War II (1939–1945) many newspapers were ordered shut, including the dailies Cumhuriyet (5 times, for 5 months and 9 days), Tan (7 times, for 2 months and 13 days), and Vatan (9 times, for 7 months and 24 days).
When the Democrat Party under Adnan Menderes came to power in 1950, censorship entered a new phase. The Press Law changed, sentences and fines were increased. Several newspapers were ordered shut, including the dailies Ulus (unlimited ban), Hürriyet, Tercüman, and Hergün (two weeks each).
In April 1960, a so-called investigation commission (Tahkikat Komisyonu) was established by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. It was given the power to confiscate publications, close papers and printing houses. Anyone not following the decisions of the commission were subject to imprisonment, between one and three years.
Freedom of speech was heavily restricted after the 1980 military coup headed by General Kenan Evren. During the 1980s and 1990s, approaching the topics of secularism, minority rights (in particular the Kurdish issue), and the role of the military in politics risked reprisal.
Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law (Law 3713), slightly amended in 1995 and later repealed, imposed three-year prison sentences for "separatist propaganda". Despite its name, the Anti-Terror Law punished many non-violent offences. Pacifists have been imprisoned under Article 8. For example, publisher Fatih Tas was prosecuted in 2002 under Article 8 at Istanbul State Security Court for translating and publishing writings by Noam Chomsky, summarizing the history of human rights violations in southeast Turkey; he was acquitted, however, in February 2002.
Prominent female publisher Ayşe Nur Zarakolu, who was described by The New York Times as "[o]ne of the most relentless challengers to Turkey's press laws", was imprisoned under Article 8 four times.
Since 2011, the AKP government has increased restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and internet use, and television content, as well as the right to free assembly. It has also developed links with media groups, and used administrative and legal measures (including, in the case of Doğan Holding, a $2.5 billion tax fine) against critical media groups and critical journalists: "over the last decade the AKP has built an informal, powerful, coalition of party-affiliated businessmen and media outlets whose livelihoods depend on the political order that Erdogan is constructing.
Those who resist do so at their own risk." Since his time as prime minister through to his presidency Erdoğan has sought to control the press, forbidding coverage, restricting internet use and stepping up repression on journalists and media outlets.[better source needed]
Foreign media noted that, particularly in the early days (31 May – 2 June 2013) of the Gezi Park protests, the events attracted relatively little mainstream media coverage in Turkey, due to either government pressure on media groups' business interests or simply ideological sympathy by media outlets. The BBC noted that while some outlets are aligned with the AKP or are personally close to Erdoğan, "most mainstream media outlets – such as TV news channels HaberTürk and NTV, and the major centrist daily Milliyet – are loath to irritate the government because their owners' business interests at times rely on government support.
All of these have tended to steer clear of covering the demonstrations." Ulusal Kanal and Halk TV provided extensive live coverage from Gezi park.
Turkey's Journalists Union estimated that at least "72 journalists had been fired or forced to take leave or had resigned in the past six weeks since the start of the unrest" in late May 2013 due to pressure from the AKP government. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party (CHP) party, said 64 journalists have been imprisoned and "We are now facing a new period where the media is controlled by the government and the police and where most media bosses take orders from political authorities." The government says most of the imprisoned journalists have been detained for serious crimes, like membership in an armed terrorist group, that are not related to journalism.
Bianet's periodical reports on freedom of the press in Turkey published in October 2015 recorded a strengthening of attacks on the opposition media during the AKP interim government in the third quarter of 2015. Bianet recorded the censorship of 101 websites, 40 Twitter accounts, 178 news; attacks against 21 journalists, three media organs, and one printing house; civil pursuits against 28 journalists; and the six-fold increase of arrests of media representatives, with 24 journalists and 9 distributors imprisoned.
The increased criminalisation of the media follows the freezing of the Kurdish peace process and the failure of AKP to obtain an outright majority at the June 2015 election and to achieve the presidentialisation of the political system. Several journalists and editors are tried for being allegedly members of unlawful organisations, linked to either Kurds or the Gülen movement, others for alleged insults to religion and to the President.
In 2015, Cumhuriyet and Doğan Holding were investigated for "terror", "espionage" and "insult". On the date of Bianet's publication, 61 people, of whom 37 journalists, were convict, defendant or suspect for having insulted or personally attacked the then-PM, now-President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for violation of the freedom of expression in the Abdurrahman Dilipak case (Sledgehammer investigation), and the Turkish Constitutional Court upheld the violation of the freedom of expression of five persons, including a journalist.
RTÜK could not yet choose its president; it still warned companies five times and fined them six times. The Supreme Electoral Council ordered 65 channels twice to stop broadcasting the results of the June 2015 election before the end of the publishing ban.
Attacks on media freedom went far beyond the AKP interim government period. The January 2016 updated Bianet report confirmed this trend, underlining that the whole 2014 figure of arrested journalists increased in 2015, reaching the number of 31 journalists arrested (22 in 2014). Once the AKP regained the majority in the elections on 1 November 2015, the Turkish government intensified the pressure on the country's media, for example by banning some TV channels, in particular those linked to the Fethullah Gülen movement, from digital platforms and by seizing control of their broadcasting.
In November 2015, Can Dündar, Cumhuriyet's editor in chief and its Ankara representative Erdem Gül were arrested on charges of belonging to a terror organisation, espionage, and for having allegedly disclosed confidential information. Investigation against the two journalists were launched after the newspaper documented the transfer of weapons from Turkey to Syria in trucks of the National Intelligence Organization previously involved in the MİT trucks scandal.
Dündar and Gül were released in February 2016 when the Supreme Court decided that their detention was unlawful. In July 2016, on the occasion of the launch of the campaign "I'm a journalist", Mehmet Koksal, project officer of the European Federation of Journalists declared that "Turkey has the largest number of journalists in jail out of all the countries in the Council of Europe."
The situation further deteriorated as a consequence of the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt of 15 July 2016 and the subsequent government reaction, leading to an increase of attacks targeting the media in Turkey. Mustafa Cambaz, a photojournalist working for the daily Yeni Şafak was killed during the coup. Turkish soldiers attempting to overthrow the government took control of several newsrooms, including the Ankara-based headquarters of the state broadcaster TRT, where they forced anchor Tijen Karaş to read a statement at gunpoint while members of the editorial board were held hostage and threatened.
Soldiers also seized the Istanbul offices of Doğan Media Center which hosted several media outlets, including the Hürriyet daily newspaper and the private TV station CNN Türk, holding journalists and other professionals hostage for many hours overnight. During the coup, in the streets of Istanbul, a photojournalist working for Hürriyet and the Associated Press was assaulted by civilians that were demonstrating against the coup.
In the following days, after the government regained power, the state regulatory authority, known as the Information Technologies and Communications Authority, shut down 20 independent online news portals. On 19 July, the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council decided to revoke the licence of 24 TV channels and radio stations for being allegedly connected to the Gülen community, without providing much details on this decision.
Also, following the decision of declaring the state of emergency for three months taken on 21 July, a series of limitations to freedom of expression and freedom of the media were imposed. The measures within the regime of emergency included the possibility of banning the printing, copying, publishing and distributing of newspapers, magazines, books and leaflets.
An editorial criticizing press censorship published on 22 May 2015 and inclusion of Erdoğan as one of a rising class of "soft" dictators in an op-ed published in May 2015 in The New York Times resulted in a strong reaction by Erdoğan. In an interview Dündar gave in July 2016, before the coup attempt and the government reaction, the journalist stated that "Turkey is going through its darkest period, journalism-wise.
It has never been an easy country for journalists, but I think today it has reached its lowest point and is experiencing unprecedented repression".
In October 2022, Turkey passed a law in which the government was given greater powers over social media and online news. The law, according to Human Rights Watch, will allow more power for the government to censor journalists as well as access to information. At the time, 65 employees in media, including journalists were in prison or detention. 25 Kurdish journalists were detained under suspicion of "membership of a terrorist organization" according to Human Rights Watch. Voice of America and Deutche Welle were blocked in Turkey by a Turkish court in June 2022.
Legislative framework
The Constitution of Turkey, at art. 28, states that the press is free and shall not be censored. Expressions of non-violent opinion are safeguarded by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, ratified by Turkey in 1954, and various provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by Turkey in 2000.
Many Turkish citizens convicted under the laws mentioned below have applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and won their cases.
Yet, Constitutional and international guarantees are undermined by restrictive provisions in the Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, and anti-terrorism laws, effectively leaving prosecutors and judges with ample discretion to repress ordinary journalistic activities. The 2017 Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights' report on freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey reiterated that censorship problems stem mainly from the Turkish Criminal Code and the Turkish Anti- Terrorism Law No. 3713.
Prosecutors continued to bring a number of cases for terrorism or membership of an armed organization mainly based on certain statements of the accused, as coinciding with the aims of such organization.
Beside the Article 301, amended in 2008, and Article 312, more than 300 provisions constrained freedom of expression, religion, and association, according to the Turkish Human Rights Association (2002). Article No. 299 of the Turkish Criminal Code provides for criminal defamation of the Head of the State, and it is being increasingly enforced. 18 persons were imprisoned for this offense as of June 2016.
Article No. 295 of the Criminal Code is increasingly being enforced as well, with a "press silence" (Yayın Yasağı) being imposed for topics of relevant public interest such as terrorist attacks and bloody blasts. The silence can be imposed on television, print, and radio, as well as on online content, web hosting, and internet service providers. Violations can result in up to three years of detention.
Many of the repressive provisions found in the Press Law, the Political Parties Law, the Trade Union Law, the Law on Associations, and other legislation, were imposed by the military junta after its coup in 1980. As for the Internet, the relevant law is Law No. 5651 of 2007.
According to the Council of Europe Commissioner and to the Venice Commission for Democracy through Law, the decrees issued under the state of emergency since July 2016, conferred an almost limitless discretionary power to the Turkish executive to apply sweeping misure against NGOs, the media and the public sector. Specifically, many NGOs were closed, the media organizations seized or shut down and public sector employees as well as journalists and media workers arrested or intimidated.
Article 299
Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code is a lèse-majesté law that deems it illegal to "Insult the President of Turkey". A person who is sentenced for a violation of this article can be sentenced to a prison term between one and four years and if the violation was made in public the verdict can be elevated by a sixth.
Prosecutions often target critics of the government, independent journalists, and political cartoonists. Between 2014 and 2019, 128,872 investigations were launched for this offense and prosecutors opened 27,717 criminal cases. Turkey's article 299 and article 125, which allows one party to sue for insult despite lack of sufficient evidence, are arguably used as part of SLAPPs.
Article 301
Article 301 is a provision in the Turkish penal code that, since 2005 made it a punishable offense to insult Turkishness or various official Turkish institutions. Charges were brought in more than 60 cases, some of which were high-profile.
The article was amended in 2008, including changing "Turkishness" into "the Turkish nation", reducing maximum prison terms to 2 years, and making it obligatory to get the approval of the Minister of Justice before filing a case. Changes were deemed "largely cosmetic" by Freedom House, although the number of prosecutions dropped.
Although only few persons were convicted, trials under Art. 301 are seen by human rights watchdogs as a punitive measure in themselves, as time-consuming and expensive, thus exerting a chilling effect on free speech.
- Novelist Orhan Pamuk, at the time a Nobel Prize candidate, was prosecuted under Article 301 for discussing the Armenian genocide; Pamuk subsequently won the prize.
- Perihan Mağden, a columnist for the newspaper Radikal, was tried under the article for provocation, and acquitted on July 27, 2006; Mağden had broached the topic of conscientious objection to mandatory military service as an abuse of human rights.
- The case of the Academics for Peace is also relevant: on January 14, 2016, 27 academics were detained for interrogations after having signed a petition with more than other 1.000 people asking for Peace in the South- East of the country, where there are ongoing violent clashes between the Turkish Army and the PKK. The academics accused the government of breaching international law. An investigation started upon those academics under charges of “terrorism propaganda”, “incitement to hatred and enmity” and for “insulting the State” under Article No. 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code.[citation needed]
Article 312
Article 312 is a controversial article of the Turkish Penal Code relating to inciting racial or religious hatred encouraging people to disobey the law. It has been used to prosecute journalists for writing about Kurdish issues.
Article 312 imposes three-year prison sentences for incitement to commit an offence and incitement to religious or racial hatred. In 1999 the mayor of Istanbul and current president of the Turkish Republic Recep Tayyip Erdogan was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment under Article 312 for reading a few lines from a poem that had been authorized by the Ministry of National Education for use in schools, and consequently had to resign.
In 2000 the chairman of the Human Rights Association, Akin Birdal, was imprisoned under Article 312 for a speech in which he called for "peace and understanding" between Kurds and Turks, and thereafter forced to resign, as the Law on Associations forbids persons who breach this and several other laws from serving as association officials.