{"id":13958,"date":"2015-10-30T06:58:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T11:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13958"},"modified":"2015-10-30T06:58:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T11:58:46","slug":"attacks-on-the-press-escalate-ahead-of-turkish-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13958","title":{"rendered":"Attacks On the Press Escalate Ahead of Turkish Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Attacks On the Press Escalate Ahead of Turkish Elections<\/a><\/h3>\n

ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Turkish riot police stormed the offices of Koza Ipek Holding, a media group in Istanbul housing the Bugun TV channel and the\u00a0Bugun<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Millet<\/em>\u00a0newspapers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDear viewers,\u201d a Bugun TV anchor casually\u00a0announced during the early morning broadcast, \u201cdo not be surprised if you see police in our studio in the upcoming minutes.\u201d Outside, police were leading journalists away in handcuffs, while citizens \u2014 many of them journalists who worked in the building \u2014 protested the dawn raid as police attempted to disperse the growing crowd with tear gas and water cannons.<\/p>\n

Scenes of riot police suddenly and forcefully storming media outlets perceived to be critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have become increasingly common in Turkey. In June the pro-Kurdish People\u2019s Democratic Party (HDP) won 13 percent of the vote in the Parliamentary election, thereby surpassing the 10 percent electoral threshold needed for Parliamentary representation and taking away seats from President Erdogan\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).<\/p>\n

Crackdown Ahead of Elections<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the November 1 elections approach \u2014 a \u201csnap\u201d election called by the AKP in hopes of regaining a Parliamentary majority \u2014 press freedom advocates are concerned that the increasing raids on media outlets and attacks on journalists represent a dire threat to Turkish democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis pressure and attacks have significantly impacted journalists\u2019 ability to report on matters of public interest freely and independently,\u201d\u00a0said Muzaffar Suleymanov, a researcher for the Committee to Protect Journalists Europe and Central Asia Program, at a recent press conference hosted by an emergency press freedom mission to Turkey. \u201cIn a practical sense, attacks on journalists compromise their work and affect the public\u2019s ability to make an informed decision to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attacks On the Press Escalate Ahead of Turkish Elections ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Turkish riot police stormed the offices of Koza Ipek Holding, a media group in Istanbul housing the Bugun TV channel and the\u00a0Bugun\u00a0and\u00a0Millet\u00a0newspapers. \u201cDear viewers,\u201d a Bugun TV anchor casually\u00a0announced during the early morning broadcast, \u201cdo not be surprised if you see police in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8253,5468,204,8289,462,512,632,1908,818,10353],"class_list":["post-13958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-akp","tag-criticism","tag-democracy","tag-hdp","tag-journalism","tag-media","tag-police","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-turkey","tag-turkish-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13959,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958\/revisions\/13959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}