Turkey: Mass detention snares leftist, pro-Kurdish and LBGTQ journalists

Turkish authorities have detained scores of leftist, pro-Kurdish and LGBTQ journalists and politicians in the latest opposition crackdown in the country.

The government said 282 people were detained in police raids across the country, accusing them of ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) armed group.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X that the operation had been ongoing for five days.

“We are determined to eradicate all forms of terrorism from these lands in order to achieve our goal of a ‘Turkey without Terrorism’ and to ensure the peace, unity and solidarity of our nation,” he posted.

Among those detained were singer and former parliamentary candidate Pinar Aydinlar, prominent campaigner and co-chair of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party Senol Karakas, human rights lawyer Nurcan Kaya, and LGBTQ rights campaigner Yildiz Tar.

Members of a range of other leftist and pro-Kurdish political parties, including the Labour Party and the People’s Democratic Congress were also swept up in the detentions.

Yerlikaya said those detained were accused of producing PKK propaganda, providing financing for the group, recruiting members and taking part in “violent street events”.

The Journalists Union of Turkey condemned the arrest of Tar, as well as journalists Ecrument Akdeniz and Elif Akgul, who was cleared of terror propaganda charges in 2024 after being charged over two posts she made on social media in 2018 and 2022.

Tar, who runs the LGBTQ rights organisation KaosGL, previously told Middle East Eye the country was becoming increasingly unsafe for campaigning journalists like himself.

“They are trying to impose an anti-LGBTI agenda on society,” he said in 2021. 

“It is not the case that there is a huge societal group that is against LGBTI people, but rather the government, political parties and media that are sponsored by the government are always targeting LGBTI people.”

In a statement on its website, KaosGL demanded the “immediate release” of Tar saying that his detention reflected the increasing “political pressure and threats against journalists and human rights defenders” in Turkey.

Media crackdown

Turkey has regularly been described as the world’s worst jailer of journalists by media freedom organisations.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party and previous Turkish administrations have long been accused of suppressing press freedom, with crackdowns on critical journalists escalating dramatically after the 2016 coup attempt.

On 5 February, several of these targeted organisations warned that Turkey was seeing a “surge” in press freedom violations.

According to a statement signed by groups including PEN International and the European Federation of Journalists, last month alone at least nine journalists were arrested, six sentenced to prison, five detained, while 23 faced investigations.

“While there appears to be a decrease in the number of journalists in prison, this masks a troubling shift toward using judicial control measures – such as travel bans, regular check-ins at police stations, and house arrest – as alternative means of restricting press freedom,” they said.

The Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish rights group monitoring press freedom, said it had monitored 281 freedom of expression trials in 2024 involving 1,856 defendants, 366 of whom were journalists.

Earlier this month, an access ban on 126 X accounts requested by the government was also approved by a single decision of a criminal court in Ankara on the grounds of “protecting national security and public order”.

According to Turkish freedom of expression organisation IFOD, those blocked included a range of journalists and media outlets, including left-leaning Arti Gercek and Yeni Yasam, the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency, and the women-focused Kurdish outlet Jin News.

Hayko Bagdat, one of those whose accounts was blocked, told MEE that authoritarianism in Turkey was being cultivated with the help of foreign platform owners such as Elon Musk.

“In Turkey, the Erdogan regime continues to attack opponents every day with new court rulings and police pressures to permanently silence democratic and equality pursuits,” he said.