According to the Rudaw News: “Based upon the data provided by five civil society organizations’ reports on the prosecution process against journalists in Turkey, at least 92 media workers are reported to be in prison as of 30 June 2020”.

The Media Monitoring Report analysed press freedom restrictions in the second quarter of 2020. It is published by the Media for Democracy (M4D) Project, which is run by the Journalists Association with European Union funding.

The report analysed problems faced by journalists during the pandemic. It shows that most press institutions did not provide sufficient quality equipment to their workers in the field. Many also suffered from pay cuts and there was increased unemployment in this sector.

According to the report, the local media suffered from an economic crisis as a result of the decrease in income due to disinformation, circulation, subscription and sales problems.

The report also focused on the detention of journalists. As of 30 June 2020, 49 press workers had been convicted and 43 were also in prison.

Journalists suffer violations of their rights

The report also revealed the results of the Occupational Satisfaction Survey, organized by the M4D Project for journalists.

Journalists participating in the survey indicated that many lost their rights during the pandemic period. Many were subjected to pay-cuts, heavier workloads or redundancy.

They also were detrimentally affected by a number of factors including: disinformation, the economic crisis in the local press, and subscription or sales problems.

The expected consequences of the Social Media Law that will come into force in October and the scope of the Press Law draft were also two important topics of discussion.