Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have voiced “deep concern” over what they described as the ongoing deterioration of democratic standards in Turkey, citing the targeting of independent journalists, activists and opposition members.
According to EU Today, the European Parliament condemned the recent sentencing of journalist Bülent Mumay, calling on Turkish authorities to drop the charges against him and release all “arbitrarily detained media workers, political opponents, human rights defenders, civil servants, and academics.”
In May 2023 Mumay was given a 20-month suspended sentence for publishing information about a construction company in defiance of a court order. The case pertains to information Mumay shared on social media in 2020 related to alleged money laundering schemes involving construction moguls and officials from the previous İstanbul local government, which was run by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
In a resolution adopted in Strasbourg, the MEPs denounced what they termed a “complex web of legislation that systematically silences and controls journalists” in Turkey, which is currently ranked 158th out of 180 countries in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The country, which became the world’s biggest prison for journalists in 2018 during a state of emergency imposed after a 2016 coup attempt, was ranked as having the eighth-highest number of jailed journalists globally in 2023. The same year, Turkey also banned access to 219,059 URLs, according to the Free Web Turkey 2023 Internet Censorship Report.
The lawmakers also criticized the planned introduction of a “foreign agent regulation” by the end of 2024, warning that it would further undermine press freedom.
According to the proposed legislation, people who are accused of disseminating black propaganda against Turkey or who appear to be speaking in favor of Turkey when in fact they are actually speaking against it as well as individuals who damage the country’s economic, social or public order will be defined as “agents of influence” and face prison time.
The resolution urged Turkish authorities to restore judicial independence, which has been compromised according to international rankings on judicial impartiality. Turkey was ranked 117th among 142 countries in the rule of law index published by the World Justice Project (WJP), dropping one rank in comparison to last year.
Thursday’s debate in the European Parliament concluded a busy week for the MEPs, who also adopted resolutions on human rights violations in China and Iraq.
