Ayşegül Doğan, a prominent Turkish journalist, has been sentenced to 6 years and 3 months behind bars in the latest example of the Turkish government’s ruthless campaign of media suppression, which has seen the country rank 154 out of 180 on the 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Turkey’s Ninth Court of Serious Crimes, in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır, charged Doğan with “membership of an armed organisation” as a result of her meetings with the executives of the pro-Kurdish NGO, Democratic Society Congress, as well as the interviews she made and the events she attended.

Her position as the Program Coordinator of İMC TV, a progressive Turkish TV channel, until its closure via a statutory decree following 2016’s failed coup, is also likely to have contributed to her being targeted by Turkish authorities.

Her attorney, Emel Ataktürk, reiterated Doğan’s intention to appeal the ruling and was highly critical of the trial, stating that:

“Ayşegül Doğan has been penalized with her journalistic activities being criminalized. What is cited as evidence is the illegal wiretapping from the time of Gülen community. The judges and prosecutors of the time were put on trial anyway. A sentence has been given in a file which should have ended in acquittal.”

In a statement released on their website, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that Turkish authorities should “cease filing terrorism charges against members of the press”, with CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, Gulnoza Said, going on to say:

“The sentencing of journalist Ayşegül Doğan is yet another example of Turkish courts and prosecutors equalizing journalism with terrorism”

The sentencing of Doğan comes just weeks after the International Press Institute’s (IPI) publication of “Turkey’s Journalists on the Ropes”; a report that highlights the extent of the crackdown on press freedom and calls for concerted action by the international community to tackle Turkey’s current media freedom crisis.

The report is comprehensive in its analysis of three primary points of concern:

The impact of extensive censorship of the internet – the imposition of the new Social Media Law on 1 October which, if fully enacted, would require social media companies to comply with government censorship demands or face being blocked within the country.

The political capture of media regulatory bodies – the partisan nature of media regulators such as ‘RTÜK’ significantly obstructs the ability of the press to produce impartial and unbiased content. The power of regulators to grant and remove licenses and impose financial penalties has meant that they are now used to muzzle public debate and critical journalism.

The ongoing crisis of judicial independence – the Turkish judiciary has slowly become more aligned with Erdoğan’s Government. Around 4,000 judges and prosecutors were purged in the three years following the 2016 coup, with Zeynel Emre, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, saying that the Turkish government:

“wields the judiciary like a sword”

With Doğan’s sentencing, it seems that the concerns voiced in the IPI report are not being addressed, and that, despite Erdoğan’s recent promises of sweeping human rights reforms, genuine progress is yet to be made.