ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkish authorities have cracked down on journalists, politicians and activists opposed to Ankara’s military offensive in northeast Syria.
Domestic and foreign critics have been targeted by security forces for criticizing the behavior of Turkish armed forces and their Syrian militia proxies taking part in Operation Peace Spring.
Kurdish journalists in Turkey documenting abuses and mass displacement since the operation began on October 9 have had their homes raided and their Twitter accounts suspended.
Police raided the home of Kurdish journalist Nurcan Baysal in Diyarbakir in the early hours of October 19.
“Some 30 to 40 policemen with guns went to my home around 5am because of my posts on social media,” Baysal told Ahval News.
Her children were home at the time of the raid.
This is not the first time police have taken action against Baysal. She was arrested in June this year under suspicion of belonging to a “terrorist organization”. She was also detained at her home in January 2018 for tweets criticizing Turkey’s operation in Afrin, according to Human Rights Watch.
An article “humiliating Turkish security forces” in 2016 led to a suspended prison sentence, the New York-based human rights monitor reported at the time.
Özgur Ogret, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) representative in Turkey, described the raid as “unnecessary and unacceptable, to say the very least”.
He told Rudaw English the prosecution of journalists in Turkey for their social media posts is “a common practice”.
“You may be writing your own indictment as you write a tweet,” he added.
In a tweet on October 14, Baysal said investigations had been opened into hundreds of people for their social media posts about the situation in Syria.
In a 2019 statement, Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the Turkish government’s persecution of its critics, which intensified in the wake of the failed 2016 coup. At least 180 media outlets were closed down during the state of emergency which followed, leaving more than 2,500 journalists jobless, further limiting press freedoms across the country.
Although the state of emergency was lifted last year, counter-terrorism laws passed in August this year threaten the same action against journalists and other figures.
Turkey has a “long tradition of misusing the criminal justice system and overboard terrorism laws to prosecute journalists, activists, and other government critics,” another HRW statement read.
Hoshang Hasan, a Qamishli-based journalist from the Syrian city of Hasaka had his Twitter account suspended.
Hasan, who is a reporter for the Kurdish Rohani Channel, told Rudaw English he was “sure” his account was blocked at Turkey’s request, “because I speak about the targeting of civilians and displacement… all the negative and brutal consequences of the military operation in Syria”.
Hosan called on the social media network and other platforms to “protect journalists and activists who spread the truth”.
Naren Briar, a US-based Kurdish human rights activist, was also blocked from Twitter for more than 12 hours.
Having previously worked with the displaced Yezidi community, Briar often posts updates on the situation for minorities in the region. However, her account went dead the day after US President Donald Trump greenlighted the Turkish invasion of northeast Syria.
Briar told Rudaw English she has received threats of violence and that Turkish censorship “is not only dangerous in the sphere of social media; it also follows with physical harm”.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time [I have] been blocked. This happens often as famous Turkish figures with a mass following will advise everyone to mass report accounts that are remotely critical of the Turkish state,” she said.
“Turkish influencers have created blog posts that go into detail about how they’d like to kill and harm Kurdish activists they’ve listed, including my account, in addition to any other account that has presented evidence of the genocide,” she added.
Human rights activists and journalists are frequently targeted in “smear campaigns”, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
Labelled as the “world’s largest prison for journalists”, Turkey is home to an “increased and sustained attack” on freedom of expression, the monitor said in a report last year. This also extends to Kurdish politicians, many of whom have been detained and dismissed from their posts for voicing opposition to the Turkish offensive in northern Syria.
Turkey, however, maintains that those jailed “are not journalists but terrorists”. In a press conference held with former UK Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, Erdogan called for a “distinction to be made” referring to detained journalists as “those who have been caught red-handed bearing weapons, those who have been killing people”.
He continued such rhetoric in talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, in which he claimed journalists are “gardeners” of terror who “water terror with the columns in their newspapers”.
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