Turkey the world biggest prison for journalists- Reporters Without Boarders

The witch hunt waged by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government against its media critics has come to a head since an abortive coup in July 2016.

A state of emergency has allowed the authorities to eliminate dozens of media outlets with the stroke of a pen, reducing pluralism to a handful of low-circulated and targeted publications.

No fewer than one hundred and eighty-nine media houses have been shut down, while 319 journalists arrested since July 15, 2016 fathom coup in Turkey.

According to Reporters Without Boarders, Turkey is again the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists, with members of the press spending more than a year in prison before trial and long jail sentences becoming the new norm—in some cases, journalists are sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of a pardon.

Detained journalists and closed media outlets are denied any effective legal recourse.

The rule of law is a fading memory under the now all-powerful president. Even constitutional court rulings are no longer automatically implemented.

Censorship of websites and online social media has also reached unprecedented levels.

Rights groups have urged Turkey to release all journalists to little avail. Erdogan and his ministers have repeatedly claimed that there are no journalists in prison — at least not for their reporting.

Turkey has a long history of putting journalism on trial, imprisoning reporters under successive military regimes as well as under Erdogan’s AKP government. In the past decade, Erdogan himself has sued thousands of critics for insulting him, among them many journalists.

Either estimate crowns Turkey the world’s leading jailer of journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey accounted for a third of all journalists imprisoned worldwide in 2016.