Fifty-two woman journalists were detained and 9 of them were sent to prison across Turkey in 2017, according to report revealed by Mesopotamia Woman Journalists Platform on Friday.
Mesopotamia Woman Journalists Platform held a press conference at the Diyarbakır Office of the Human Rights Association (İHD) to announce their report on the rights violations against women journalists and the press in Turkey in 2017.
Reading a press statement, the platform’s spokeswoman Ayşe Güney has said that the government decrees (KHK), issued under the rule of emergency declared in the aftermath of a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016, have been used as a means of persecuting certain sections of the society.
According to a report by pr-Kurdish Fırat news agency, the platform’s report lists the rights violations that woman journalists have experienced in 2017 as follows:
A total of 52 women journalists were detained as they were following news or in house raids. Nine woman journalists were arrested by Turkish courts and sent to prisons. Six 6 women journalists, including Nujiyan Erhan, were killed on duty. Lawsuits were filed against 26 woman journalists for being a journalist or showing solidarity with journalists. Six woman journalists were sentenced to prison terms between 15 months and 7 years.
Two woman journalists’ yellow press cards revoked by the government by citing the rule of emergency as an excuse. Ten woman 10 journalists were subjected to battery and threats by the police in custody or in police stations. Women journalists were threatened and attacked by men as they were on duty. Thirty-five media outlets including Turkey’s only women’s online journal newspaper Şûjin were shut down by government decrees issued throughout 2017. A total of 25 woman journalists were fired from their jobs.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by the SCF has showed that 244 journalists and media workers are in jails as of December 26, 2017, most in pre-trial detention languishing in notorious Turkish prisons without even a conviction. Of those in Turkish prisons, 217 are arrested pending trial, only 27 journalists remain convicted and serving time in Turkish prisons. An outstanding detention warrants remain for 139 journalists who live in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down more than 180 media outlets after the controversial coup attempt.
