Erdoğan’s Capture of Turkey’s Media: Paving the Road from Gezi Park to War in Syria

What began six years ago as an environmentalist youth resistance in the heart of Istanbul marked a sharp autocratic turn for Turkey’s strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Ever since then, his moves resulted in subordinating journalism and the judiciary; driving wedges into the opposition; brutally crushing dissent; profiting from one crisis to another; and, currently, war. Turkey’s story shifted from hope to nightmare, with the consolidation of a one-man rule – setting oppressive patterns for other neo-populist leaders of countries worldwide, including the USA.

Yavuz Baydar, exiled Editor-in-Chief of trilingual Ahval News Online, whose discussion paper, titled ‘The Newsroom as an Open Air Prison: Corruption and Self-Censorship in Turkish Journalism‘ as a Shorenstein Fellow 2014, foresaw the path as Erdoğan’s choice, brings us up to date on his current moves and what is next for Turkey and its media.