Amnesty on Turkish media crackdown: 'Disinformation flourishes when media landscape's narrowed down'

The state takeover of Halk TV, one of Turkey’s most widely watched news channels, represents far more than an isolated confrontation between the authorities and an independent broadcaster. For Milena Buyum, Amnesty International’s Turkey campaigner, it is part of a broader erosion of media pluralism, characterized by the appointment of state trustees, the detention of journalists and mounting restrictions on independent digital platforms. Buyum describes the intervention as a "brutal attack on media freedom in Turkey,” framing it within a sustained crackdown on independent journalism that has intensified since March 2025.