Denouncing the increasing pressure on journalists in Turkey, the Human Rights Association (IHD) Ankara Branch announced the establishment of a ‘Monitoring Commission on Rights Violations against the Press’ at a press conference on Thursday.

Ercan İpekçi, founding member of the Monitoring Commission, recalled the cases of journalists who were imprisoned in Turkey in the last month.

İpekçi also remembered Kurdish journalists Nazım Daştan and Cihan Bilgin who were killed in a Turkish airstrike while covering the developments in North-East Syria on 19 December 2024.

Noting that the number of imprisoned journalists in Turkey has reached 47, İpekçi continued: “It has become an extremely common practice in Turkey for journalists to be tried and imprisoned on charges of ‘terrorism’. The accusation of terrorism, far beyond the reality of violence that the word implies, has taken the form of slander based on secret witnesses; it has become a method of arresting, prosecuting and sentencing journalists.”

İpekçi stated that imprisonment has turned into an instrument of punishment in Turkey, especially for journalists.

Journalist-writer Hüseyin Aykol denounced the fact that the profession of journalism is criminalized in Turkey by linking it to 'terrorism'.

Underlining that this practice has no place in law, Aykol called for solidarity from the whole society and journalists’ organizations against the attacks and arrests.