The mass media in Turkey includes a wide variety of domestic and foreign periodicals expressing disparate views, and domestic newspapers are extremely competitive. However, media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few large private media groups which are typically part of wider conglomerates controlled by wealthy individuals, which limits the views that are presented. In addition, the companies are willing to use their influence to support their owners' wider business interests, including by trying to maintain friendly relations with the government. The media exert a strong influence on public opinion. Censorship in Turkey is also an issue, and in the 2000s Turkey has seen many journalists arrested and writers prosecuted. On Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index it has fallen from being ranked around 100 in 2005 to around 150 in 2013.
Article 301 is a lèse-majesté law of the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, Turkish government institutions, or Turkish national heroes such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It took effect on June 1, 2005, and was introduced as part of a package of penal law reform in the process preceding the opening of negotiations for Turkish membership of the European Union (EU). The original version of the article made it a crime to "insult Turkishness"; on April 30, 2008, the article was amended to change "Turkishness" into "the Turkish nation". Since this article became law, charges have been brought in more than 60 cases, some of which are high-profile.
The Democratic Society Party was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the Socialist International. It was considered to be the successor of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP). The party was established in 2005 and succeeded in getting elected more than ninety mayors in the municipal elections of 2009. On 11 December 2009, the Constitutional Court of Turkey banned the DTP, ruling that the party has become "focal point of activities against the indivisible unity of the state, the country and the nation". The ban has been widely criticized both by groups within Turkey and by several international organizations. The party was succeeded by the Peace and Democracy Party.
The Independent Turkey Party is a nationalist and Kemalist political party founded on 25 September 2001 by Haydar Baş, who was succeeded by his son Hüseyin Baş after his death in 2020.
Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, the latter taking precedence over domestic law, according to Article 90 of the Constitution of Turkey.
Education and Science Workers' Union, better known with its abbreviation Eğitim-Sen, is a left-wing trade union of teachers and other education workers in Turkey. In 2005, it had around 200,000 members and was Turkey's largest trade union.
Taraf was a liberal newspaper in Turkey. It had distinguished itself by opposing interference by the Turkish military in the country's social and political affairs. It was distributed nationwide, and had been in circulation since November 15, 2007. On July 27, 2016, the newspaper was closed under a statutory decree during the state of emergency after the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, due to its links with the coup plotters' Gülen movement.
Gültan Kışanak is a Kurdish journalist, author and politician from Turkey. Kışanak was born in Elazığ in 1961. Her family is originally from Dersim. She is a former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and Head of Municipality of Diyarbakır. She has been imprisoned since October 2016.
Ayla Akat Ata is a Kurdish–Turkish jurist and former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). She is a women's rights activist and the co-founder of the Free Women's Congress (KJA). Besides she was also involved in the negotiations between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish Government in 2013.
Selahattin Demirtaş is a Turkish politician and author of Kurdish origin. He was the co-leader of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), serving alongside Figen Yüksekdağ from 2014 to 2018. Selahattin Demirtaş announced that he left politics after the May 2023 elections.
Facebook is a social networking service that has been gradually replacing traditional media channels since 2010. Facebook has limited moderation of the content posted to its site. Because the site indiscriminately displays material publicly posted by users, Facebook can, in effect, threaten oppressive governments. Facebook can simultaneously propagate fake news, hate speech, and misinformation, thereby undermining the credibility of online platforms and social media.
Ahmet Şık is a Turkish investigative journalist, the author of several books, a trade unionist, and member of Parliament in Turkey. His book, The Imam's Army, investigating the controversial Gülen movement of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, led to his detention for a year in 2011–2012 and the book's being seized and banned. He was under indictment in the OdaTV case of the Ergenekon trials; his cause has been taken up by English PEN, an association of writers fighting for freedom of expression. In 2016, the prosecutor in this case requested Şık's acquittal. On 29 December 2016, Şık was taken into custody once again on charges of "propaganda of terrorist organisations", with reference to 11 tweets that he had published. The following day, an Istanbul judge ordered Ahmet's arrest. According to lawyers, Şık was denied access to legal advice, held in solitary confinement, and not given drinking water for three days. He ran as an HDP candidate in 2018 Turkish elections and got elected from Istanbul's second electoral district. In 2020, he resigned from HDP, citing political differences and after sitting as an independent for a year, he joined the Workers' Party of Turkey.
Istanbul Pride is a pride parade and LGBTQ demonstration held annually in Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul since 2003. Participants assemble in Taksim Square before marching the entire length of İstiklal Avenue. It has been described as the first and biggest LGBT event in Muslim-majority countries.
Özgür Gündem was an Istanbul-based daily Turkish language newspaper, mainly read by Kurds. Launched in May 1992, the newspaper was known for its extensive reporting on the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, and was regularly accused of making propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Its editors and staff have frequently been arrested and prosecuted, which resulted in multiple publication bans. Since April 1994, the publication continued under different names until Özgür Gündem was relaunched in 2011.
The Free Cause Party is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist political party in Turkey.
Günlük (Daily) was a Turkish newspaper known for its writing about Kurdish issues. It was published from 2009 to 2011.
Ertuğrul Kürkçü is a Turkish politician, socialist activist and the current Honorary President of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) as of 22 June 2014 and Honorary Associate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as of 8 October 2018.
Erol Önderoğlu is a Turkish-French journalist, and a representative of Reporters Without Borders. In 2016, he was arrested by the Turkish government for his work supporting Ozgur Gundem, a Kurdish newspaper, and accused of supporting terrorists; his arrest was widely criticized as suppression of freedom of the press.
