A Turkish court has handed down a 10-month suspended sentence to a journalist on conviction of spreading disinformation regarding earthquakes that devastated parts of Turkey in 2023, Turkish Minute reported on Tuesday.
The magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes affected 11 provinces in the country’s south and southeast on February 6, 2023, killing more than 53,000 people in Turkey and leaving millions homeless.
The Ankara 75th Criminal Court of First Instance handed down a suspended 10-month sentence to journalist Yüsra Batıhan for her reports on the earthquakes for the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency, which she also shared on her X account.
Her reports detailed the burial of dead bodies, retrieved from the debris, without any records, in addition to authorities’ seizure of containers of humanitarian assistance sent by a pro-Kurdish party for the earthquake survivors.
Batıhan was convicted of “disturbing public order” under Article 217 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which addresses “publicly disseminating misleading information.”
The journalist’s lawyer, Onur Ardık, said that they would appeal the decision.
In the aftermath of the earthquakes, there was a flood of reports of “rescue miracles” that, while uplifting, often overshadowed the horrific reality and systemic failures that had contributed to the scale of the disaster.
According to the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), criticism and news related to disaster management during the February 6 earthquakes have been heavily censored. Twitter was shut down for nine hours on February 8, four journalists reporting from the rubble were detained, and two were arrested within a month of the disaster, with at least 18 journalists being investigated for ‘disseminating misleading information to the public’ based on their news or social media posts.
These actions underscore the challenges Turkish journalists and media faced when reporting on the earthquakes.
Critics accuse the Turkish government of having taken almost complete control of the Turkish media following a failed military coup in 2016.
The government closed down hundreds of media outlets and imprisoned scores of critical journalists under the pretext of fighting the coup.
Journalists risk losing their jobs, being harassed by the judiciary or being jailed for even the slightest criticism of the government.
Turkey, which became the world’s biggest prison for journalists in 2018 during a state of emergency imposed after the coup attempt, was ranked 158th of 180 countries in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.
