JINHA

İSTANBUL – As 33 journalists have been jailed in Tukey on May 3, World Press Freedom Day, “Journalism is not a crime,” said Itır Erhart, academic of Faculty of Communication at Istanbul Bilgi University.

The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day in 1993 for a free and independent press. Journalism is described as “The closest to event, the farthest to comfortable” in many parts of the world. Even if May 3 has been celebrated as World Press Freedom Day in the world, the prisons of Turkey are full with journalists. Faculty of Communication at Istanbul Bilgi University academic Itır Erhart talked to the May 3, World Press Freedom Day. She said, “Turkey ranks first in the world in the number of imprisoned journalists. Press, that takes a stand against and criticizes the power, suffers oppression everytime.”

Itır reminded the pressure on the Kurdish journalists and said, “Kurdish press has been become a target recently. That hampers the citizens to reach the channels that report the news outside of the official discourse of the power. In my opinion, these channels are extremely important in this clashes period that we are in. Talking about the freedom of press is so hard editorial independence is guaranteed. Journalism is not a crime.

(ro/ck/dk/gd)