Silencing Kurdish Voices

September 20, 2016 10:21 AM

An on-the-ground report from post-coup Turkey, where the Kurdish press is facing stepped-up repression.
“If we were doing this kind of journalism in another part of the world, we would get international awards, but here, our reward is punishment.”
posted by adamvasco (5 comments total)

Media rights advocates say the state of free speech in Turkey has never been more threatened.

My heart breaks for Turkey and especially/always for the Kurds. The imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killings of Kurdish journalists are one facet of the extremely complex and ugly story of modern Turkey.
posted by librarylis at 7:39 PM on September 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mainstream American journalists could do their jobs in peace here if their bosses encouraged that kind of thing. But it's not profitable, so few American journalists practice actual journalism. Meanwhile, Kurdish journalists (and others) get murdered. This is heartbreaking, ugly, and necessary reading. Thanks for sharing it, OP.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:10 PM on September 20, 2016

Wiki has some blood chilling lists of Turkish journalists arrested and killed.
A little more about the recent closure of Özgur Gundem.
Kurdish Journalists: Forgotten Victims of Turkey's Press War
posted by adamvasco at 5:53 AM on September 21, 2016

Thanks for this; I wish more attention were paid to this topic, but I guess people have outrage fatigue.
posted by languagehat at 6:06 AM on September 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

This recent excellent FPP on the Kurds shows that history continues to be against them; not wanted by any of the major states but occupying territory that is too precious to let go as well as oil

BBC helps explain who are the Kurds whose tribal homelands are in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq.
Kurds the Betrayed Race
posted by adamvasco at 6:57 AM on September 21, 2016 [1 favorite]