The outdoor tables of Kafka Kültür Internet Cafe are covered with piles of empty teacups and ashtrays full of half-smoked cigarettes. Several customers sit and open their laptops, while the chattering and gentle sounds of typing on keyboards and phones … Read more
When two young journalists were married in a Turkish prison in 2017, they vowed to be always together “in bondage and in freedom, in autocracy and in democracy.” Minez Bayülgen, a journalist with the news website Diken at the … Read more
Not long after Turkish lawmakers aligned with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration presented the parliament with a bill to criminalize disinformation in late May, a new wave of arrests targeting journalists was launched, underlining the government’s multi-pronged attempt to monopolize … Read more
Shooting a glance at the uncanny paraphernalia on my desk feels like watching a “Breaking Bad” teaser: A fist-sized rock near my monitor, a half-burnt tear gas canister on the rock, holding a pen, and a handwritten letter from a … Read more
In August, Emine Bulut, 38, met her ex-husband at a cafe in the central Anatolian city of Kırıkkale in Turkey. A fight broke out between the two, and the man stabbed her to death. Their 10-year-old daughter was also present … Read more
Deniz Yücel is the only German journalist who is in prison in Turkey for doing his job. He has been in police custody since February 14, when he turned himself in for questioning. He has been held since … Read more
Engin Onder was a recent college graduate in 2012 when, frustrated by the state of the media in Turkey, he joined with friends on Twitter to launch 140journos, a citizen-sustained news outlet. He described the early days … Read more
There was no blood, no violence, no panic. Just a little boy’s body washed ashore, one of thousands of victims of the refugee crisis unfolding along the borders of Europe. Yet the images of Alan Kurdi lying on a … Read more
In December of 2011, Turkish military jets bombed the village of Uludere, about five miles from the border with Iraq, killing 34. Was the attack a tragic mistake or a planned strike on suspected Kurdish separatists? Were the casualties … Read more
