Turkish media: rise in layoffs and attacks

A total of 384 Turkish journalists were laid off or forced to resign between July 2013 and the end of June 2014, according to the survey released on July 23rd by the Turkish news portal Bianet . Nearly half of them, or 186 people, lost their jobs in only the three months to June 30th, up from 65 in the same period last year.

"The ownership structure of the media continues to increase the power, primarily of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the government to intervene in editorial freedom," Erol Önderoğlu, the author of the Bianet report, wrote.

The survey also found an increase in the number of attacks carried out against journalists and media in Turkey between April 1st and June 30th this year, as compared to the previous three months.

"54 journalists, one local newspaper, one Internet news site were assaulted and one journalist verbally attacked, all within the three months; five journalists and one newspaper were threatened. At least 40 assaults against 34 journalists, one newspaper, one agency and one Internet site had taken place in the period January-March 2014," the report said.

Yet, the figure for the second quarter of 2014 was lower than that for the same period last year, which coincided with the outbreak of mass protests in Istanbul in late May over the government's plans to demolish the city's Gezi Park and build an Ottoman-style shopping mall in its place. A total of 91 reporters had been assaulted and verbally attacked, and 3 had been threatened, Bianet 's report said.

The Turkish authorities faced strong international criticism over the heavy-handed clampdown of last year's protests by police. Yet, they have done "nothing… about the security forces that injured 153 and detained 39 journalists in the period May 27th-September 30th, 2013," Önderoğlu noted.

The report also took stock of other developments in the media sector in the second quarter of this year, among them detentions and incarceration of journalists, as well as newly launched and ongoing investigations, lawsuits and verdicts against media workers.