土耳其政府扩大媒体限制

AS IT IS 2016-05-01 Turkey Expands Media Crackdown 土耳其政府扩大媒体限制

Journalists attempting to work in Turkey are facing new pressures as the government enforces a ban on insulting the president.

American reporter David Lepeska was denied entry to Turkey on Monday. He told followers¹ on social media that he was stopped at Istanbul Ataturk Airport and immediately put on a flight to Chicago.

Last Sunday, Turkish police detained Dutch journalist Ebru Umar at her home in the town of Kusadasi. Her detention² resulted from a series of tweets on social media. In those messages, she repeated parts of her recent story about Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She was later released, but told not to leave the country. 

Erdogan has enforced the rarely-used law that makes it illegal to insult the president. Since his election in 2014, the government has brought charges against nearly 2,000 people. Many are reporters or work for media companies.

Sevgi Akarcesme is a Turkish journalist. To avoid legal action, she said, most people simply say or write ‘the Palace’ -- meaning the offices of the president.

She said she has been in court not only for her tweets, but for a comment left, without her knowledge, under one of the tweets. She received a suspended jail sentence.

Akarcesme was the editor of the English language newspaper Today’s Zaman. The courts seized the paper last month on suspicion of supporting terrorism.

Laws against terrorism have been used against two of the country’s most famous journalists. Can Dundar and Erdem Gul are with the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet. They were charged with publishing a story critical of the Turkish state. The article accuses the Turkish government of secretly giving weapons to Syrian rebels.

The collapse³ of the ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is seen as one reason for the government’s campaign against journalists. 

The government argues the country is facing an unprecedented⁴ threat from the PKK and the self-declared Islamic State militant⁵ group.

On Thursday, a Turkish court sentenced two journalists to two years in prison for inciting⁶ “public hatred⁷.” But the journalists were found not guilty of “insulting religious values.”

The charges were announced after the two reproduced a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad. The picture first appeared in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Concern about media freedom continues to grow among Turkey’s allies, including the United States. The State Department, the European Parliament and Council of Europe voiced their concern about legal pressure against the media in Turkey.

Words in This Story

journalist – n. a person who collects, writes, and edits news stories for newspapers, magazines, television or radio

tweet – n. a message sent using social media

unprecedented – adj. never done or known before

cartoon – n. a simple image showing its subjects in a humorous way

1 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

2 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

3 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

4 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

5 militant   

adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals.一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。
• He is a militant in the movement.他在那次运动中是个激进人物。

6 inciting   

刺激的，煽动的

参考例句：

• What are you up to inciting mutiny and insubordination? 你们干吗在这里煽动骚动的叛乱呀。
• He was charged with inciting people to rebel. 他被控煽动民众起来叛乱。

7 hatred   

n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨

参考例句：

• He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
• The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。