Turkish authorities have blocked access to the website of the Kurdish newspaper Yeni Yaşam for the fifth time. The restriction is part of the censorship and persecution of Kurdish media and journalists in Turkey.
Following the prohibition of access to its website “yeniyasamgazetesi4.com”, the daily newspaper Yeni Yaşam continues its publication at the address “yeniyasamgazetesi5.com”.
Turkey has long imposed restrictions on Kurdish media. The initial ban on Yeni Yaşam's website was imposed in September 2020. Subsequently, in January 2022, March 2022 and January 2023, the newspaper's website was also banned.
Yeni Yaşam, which began publication in May 2018, succeeded Özgür Gündem, a daily published in the 1990s in Turkish and Kurdish.
During Özgür Gündem's initial period of publication between 1992 and 1994, a significant number of its staff, including writers, journalists and distributors, were murdered by paramilitaries. Its offices were also attacked.
Of a total of 580 issues published, 486 were the subject of legal proceedings, resulting in the sentencing of many staff members to prison terms.
Özgür Gündem resumed publication in 2011 after being closed by court order in April 1994. However, it was eventually closed by decree-law issued in October 2016.
The Kurdish media remains one of the most censored areas in Turkey, with Yeni Yaşam becoming the latest target of these ongoing restrictions.
Between 2014 and 2018 alone, the Turkish government completely blocked access to more than 245,000 web pages, including Wikipedia and Facebook. In 2019, Turkey blocked access to 408,000 sites, 40,000 tweets, 10,000 YouTube videos and 6,200 Facebook shares, according to statistics from the TechRadar site.
