'Can no longer breathe': Thousands protest in Turkey over media crackdown

NEW DELHI: Thousands of people took to the streets in Istanbul and Ankara on Saturday to protest what journalists and rights groups described as growing government pressure on independent media, including arrests, censorship and the takeover of news outlets.Police estimated that around 3,000 people attended the demonstration in Ankara. Journalists, rights activists and opposition representatives joined the protests, chanting slogans such as “Enough!” and “We can no longer breathe!” and demanding press freedom and the release of jailed journalists, as reported by AFP.In Istanbul, demonstrators displayed photographs of imprisoned journalists and shouted, “We will not be silenced.

Enough is enough!” and “We will not bow to pressure”.The protests come amid growing concerns over restrictions on independent journalism in Turkey. According to the Turkish Journalists' Union, authorities have jailed 11 journalists over the past two months and shut down several media outlets.Earlier this month, police raided Halk TV, Turkey's most-watched news channel, halted its broadcasts and installed a government-appointed administrator.

The move was the latest action against media organisations perceived to be critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.Authorities also shut down the website and social media accounts of digital news outlet T24 over what they described as “LGBT propaganda”.Press freedom has faced increasing constraints in Turkey since a failed coup attempt in 2016, with journalists subjected to prosecutions and digital censorship.

Authorities have also accused media professionals of spreading fake news.Veteran journalist Zafer Arapkirli, speaking after the Istanbul demonstration, said the protests were about defending the public's right to information as well as journalists' freedom.“This gathering is not simply about standing up for journalists,” he told AFP. “It is also about defending respect for society's right to access information and news through journalists and independent media.”Arapkirli, who himself faces lawsuits, accused the authorities of using arrests and restrictions to intimidate the public. “What the regime wants is to intimidate, silence and frighten society through such pressure -- by arresting individual journalists, seizing media outlets, banning news coverage and blocking access to social media,” he said.“We must show that we will not allow this to happen,” he added.Gokhan Durmus, president of the Turkish Journalists' Union, said recent restrictions had increasingly targeted prominent broadcasters and widely followed news platforms.“We are seeing a system emerge in which everything is uniform: one voice, one source of news, one centralised operation,” he told AFP.In Ankara, demonstrators called for an end to censorship and demanded the release of journalists in prison. Gokcer Tahincioglu of the shut-down outlet T24 said the rally defended both journalists' rights and the public's access to information.“Journalists are determined to get one message across: we want to practise journalism, and we want to be able to do so freely,” he said.A letter from jailed BirGun journalist Ismail Ari was also read out at the Ankara protest. Ari, who was arrested this month for the second time in seven months, said he had been imprisoned for carrying out his work.“I am being held in prison for no reason other than doing my job as a journalist. Days are being stolen from my life,” he wrote from Sincan prison on the outskirts of Ankara.“We will defend journalism to the very end. Take your hands off us, comply with the constitution and let us do our job,” he added.Ari faces charges of insulting a public official and publicly disseminating misleading information following a complaint by Turkey's broadcasting watchdog chief, Ebubekir Sahin.The Turkish government has repeatedly denied that journalists are arrested or imprisoned for doing their jobs.