'Working Journalists Day' adds insult to injury for Turkish press
This year's "Working Journalists Day" is a bleak holiday indeed in Turkey, the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.
“Working Journalists Day,” celebrated Jan. 10 in Turkey, is meant to honor the rights of reporters and other media workers in the country. While the press has never been really free in Turkey, rarely have conditions for journalists been as bleak as they are today.
With over 100 journalists currently behind bars, Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world, outranking China and Egypt, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres.
Media bosses buckling under government pressure continue to fire critical reporters and columnists — around 10,000 Turkish journalists are unemployed — leaving an ever shrinking number of “working journalists” to celebrate today.
“For two months our one and only son has been pining for his father’s face,” tweeted Nazire Kalkan Gursel, the wife of Kadri Gursel, a fellow Al-Monitor columnist and one of Turkey’s best-respected journalists. He is among scores of journalists in pretrial detention for articles or tweets deemed threatening to the Turkish state.
