On protest, self-censorship, and a long social media silence

Protesters in Istanbul, before it was clear that photos from demonstrations would be used as evidence in court.

These are unprecedented times in Turkey.

For starters, many of the anti-government protests we cover are deemed illegal by local authorities. It's also against the law to insult the president, governmental institutions, or the Turkish nation. Publishing what a court decides is misinformation is punishable with up to three years of jail time. And, if you’re covering a particularly thorny topic, you can be faced with charges you never expected. Like Swedish reporter Joakim Medin, who is still facing charges of being part of a terror group, despite being released from prison. Or AFP photographer Bülent Kılıç, who had to ask us all to check our cameras for pictures of him photographing a protest, when he was accused of leading it. (For those unaware -- catching a colleague in a shot is usually an accident, and often unpublishable, so we rarely keep these.)

Working as a journalist in this environment involves a lot of guesswork, and zero room for error. You double check your facts, second guess your assumptions, and occasionally pass a story on to a colleague if you think you can’t cover it without self censoring. You try not to admit this, because you feel like a coward. But you never really know if a story will trigger a court case until it’s too late. The cynic in me wonders if that’s by design.

Let's be clear: Journalists who are Turkish citizens bear the brunt of these arrests, fines, and legal cases. Seventeen are currently serving time, according to the Turkish Journalists' Union. Many more have been released, but are facing ongoing legal cases. They risk careers, jail time, savings, and their own personal safety to do their jobs – often without the backing of an employer. This is what happens when the freedom of the press gets eroded in your country, over the course of decades. They are some of the bravest people I have ever met.

Every protest gets a meatball truck.

As for foreigners, we do the job alongside them as best we can. We know we have blind spots to where the red lines are, but we also know that for some reason, we receive a degree of flexibility with these laws – a kind of ‘passport privilege.’ Every year, we re-apply for our press cards and our legal right to remain in Turkey, knowing that the government regularly checks our articles. If we get denied, we have to leave.

I’m not a prolific social media user, and this is why. When I moved here six years ago, I decided to push most of my mental and emotional energy into my published work, not my social media presence. In general, we know that court cases against journalists in Turkey are often triggered by social media posts, not published articles. I know that my employer and the places I freelance for each have a greater reach than the audiences I’ve been able to build on Instagram and Twitter. Whether I do it with a byline or not doesn’t really matter to me. I can look at a five minute audio segment and tell myself, yes – this is worth the risk. But a tweet? A TikTok video?

I know I miss out on readership, by not promoting my work myself. And to friends and family, I know this looks like silence. But this doesn't mean I don't care. I really love my job, despite working in a country with limited press freedom – and I want to be able to keep doing it. Sometimes this means prioritizing the core of your work, at least for a little while. In the meantime, I figured it’s high time I owe you all that transparency.

Thanks for listening. Be safe out there.