{"id":18709,"date":"2025-03-26T12:32:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T12:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/?p=18709"},"modified":"2025-03-26T13:11:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T13:11:19","slug":"turkiye-alarming-crackdown-on-peaceful-expression-condemned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/2025\/03\/26\/turkiye-alarming-crackdown-on-peaceful-expression-condemned.html","title":{"rendered":"T\u00fcrkiye: Alarming crackdown on peaceful expression condemned"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEN Belarus joins the\u00a0statement<\/a> of PEN International about the brutal onslaught on peaceful expression in T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n

\u201cPEN International condemns the brutal onslaught on peaceful expression unleashed by the authorities of T\u00fcrkiye, who continue to show their utter contempt for the rule of law and long-standing determination to silence peaceful dissent. All those held solely for exercising their rights to peaceful expression and assembly must be released. The ever-growing roll back on fundamental rights in the country must end at once.\u201d <\/em>Burhan Sonmez, PEN International President. <\/strong><\/p>\n

24 March 2025: The authorities of T\u00fcrkiye must urgently uphold the rights to freedom of expression, information and peaceful protest, PEN International said today, amidst a mounting crackdown on independent voices, targeting writers, journalists, lawyers and opposition figures. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>On 19 March 2025, over 100 people, including Istanbul\u2019s mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, were detained on alleged \u2018corruption\u2019 and \u2018terrorism\u2019 grounds, in a move widely seen as politically motivated<\/a>. Massive protests<\/a> have since erupted in Istanbul \u2013 defying a ban<\/a> on all public demonstrations \u2013 and across the country. The authorities temporarily restricted<\/a> access to social media and messaging platforms in a bid to suppress access to information, and urged<\/a> X to block access to hundreds of accounts. Journalists who covered the protests reported being subject to police violence<\/a>. At least ten media workers were detained<\/a> in morning raids in Istanbul and Izmir on 24 March, as the authorities\u2019 onslaught on fundamental rights intensified.<\/p>\n

\u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s arrest came in the wake of a mounting crackdown on independent voices in T\u00fcrkiye in recent months. Already in February 2025, PEN International joined partners in expressing serious concerns<\/a> over a surge in press freedom violations, including the growing use of arbitrary arrests, detentions and judicial control measures against journalists. That same month, almost 300 people were detained<\/a> in police raids across the country \u00a0\u2013 including writers, journalists and artists \u2013 on alleged ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK). On 5 March, writers and Kurdish PEN members Mevl\u00fct Ayko\u00e7, Sami Tan and Ronah\u00ee \u00d6nen were detained<\/a> in coordinated raids in Istanbul, Urfa and Diyarbak\u0131r, ostensibly for publishing teaching material in Kurdish. All three were subsequently released, though the case against them continues.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the authorities continue to undermine the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and notably launched criminal proceedings<\/a> against the Istanbul Bar Association after it calls for an investigation into the December 2024 killing of Kurdish journalists Naz\u0131m Da\u015ftan and C\u00eehan Bilgin in north-east Syria. On 21 March 2025, a court ordered<\/a> that the president and executive board of the Istanbul Bar Association be dismissed as part of the criminal probe.<\/p>\n

According to the Ministry of Interior of T\u00fcrkiye, 1,133 people have been detained<\/a> since 19 March. As protests continue to sweep through T\u00fcrkiye, PEN International calls upon the authorities to abide by their national and international organisations and to urgently uphold fundamental rights. The criminal justice system must not be used to target and harass dissenting views.<\/p>\n

Note to editors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For further details contact Aur\u00e9lia Dondo,<\/strong> Head of Europe and Central Asia Region at PEN International:\u00a0Aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org<\/a><\/p>\n

For media queries, please contact\u202fSabrina Tucci<\/strong>, PEN International Communications and Campaigns Manager,\u202f\u202fSabrina.Tucci@pen-international.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEN Belarus joins the\u00a0statement of PEN International about the brutal onslaught on peaceful expression in T\u00fcrkiye. \u201cPEN International condemns the brutal onslaught on peaceful expression unleashed by the authorities of T\u00fcrkiye, who continue to show their utter contempt for the rule of law and long-standing determination to silence peaceful dissent. All those held solely for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":18710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18709"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18714,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18709\/revisions\/18714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}