Turkey – the world’s largest prison for journalists

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Turkey – the world’s largest prison for journalists ǀ View
By Beril Eski

As usual during the first days of spring, the weather was sunny when I stepped inside the cold walls of Bakırköy women’s prison in Istanbul. Inside I met Nazlı Ilıcak, a 75-year-old journalist who was sentenced to life imprisonment for having “attempted to destroy the constitutional order.” She has been in prison for almost three years now and was still surprised at how a notebook in which she kept friends’ phone numbers could be taken as evidence to support accusations of “terrorism.”
“It is like being trapped inside a tomb”

Nazlı Ilıcak told me she was missing her old life and missing her children and grandchildren. “It is like being trapped inside a tomb. You try to reach out and hold on to something, but you can’t.”

When I asked if she would write an article for our World Press Freedom Day campaign, she immediately became serious as she took her pen and paper and started to write. In that moment, I could see her reaching outside the prison walls and becoming a journalist again. In fact, I saw the same expression – that of a serious journalist who loves their job - in the faces of all the other imprisoned journalists I visited.

Read more at: https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/06/turkey-the-world-s-largest-prison-for-journalists-view