The majority of Turkish journalists say they feel unsafe while doing their jobs because of physical assaults and online attacks, says a new report by Turkey’s Media and Law Studies Association.
Turkey’s Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA told BIRN that its latest report shows that most journalists in the country do not feel safe at work.
“The report shows that, in addition to physical and judicial violence, attacks against journalists, especially women and LGBTI+ journalists, have increased on social media platforms,” Baris Altintas, co-chair of the MLSA, told BIRN.
According to the MLSA report, ‘Journalism in Turkey: I Do Not Feel Safe’, more than 80 per cent of the 57 journalists surveyed have encountered physical violence in the last five years and 79 per cent have been attacked online at least once during the same period.
“The most frequent form of violence that journalists face is insults and hate speech. This is followed by pushing and pulling and assault with tear gas, pepper spray, or other gas,” the report said.
The online medium in which journalists said they were most exposed to threats was Twitter, where 70 per cent of the respondents said they had experienced attacks.
A total of 87 per cent of the journalists surveyed said they do not feel safe while doing their jobs.
However, nearly 51 per cent said they feel very unsafe and only 1.8 per cent said they feel safe.
According to Altintas, the main reason is that the perpetrators are able to act without fear of prosecution.
“The root of the problem is impunity, as we have seen in other countries. Because the state and the judiciary encourage attacks on journalists, law enforcement agencies, security guards or online trolls see [they have] the right to do it,” Altintas said.
The report’s findings indicated that officials were involved in significant numbers of cases.
“The identity of 18.7 per cent of the perpetrators of threats and physical attacks was unknown to the survey participants. Of the perpetrators, 17.6 per cent were public officials, and 28.6 per cent were police officers,” the report said.
Altintas added that the state and the judiciary have rewarded some perpetrators instead of punishing them.
“For example, a police chief who sexually harassed an activist in front of cameras and did the similar to many journalists in the field was promoted last month,” he said.
The MLSA is a leading rights organisations working on the protection of journalists, press freedom, freedom of information and promoting the rights of oppressed groups including minorities and LGBT communities.