Özgür Gündem
 |
|
| Editor-in-chief | Zana Kaya |
|---|---|
| Founded | 30 May 1992 |
| Ceased publication | 16 August 2016 |
| Headquarters | Beyoğlu |
| City | Istanbul |
| Country | Turkey |
| Website | www |
Özgür Gündem (Turkish for "Free Agenda") was an Istanbul-based daily newspaper in Turkish language that was mainly read by people of Kurdish origin. Launched in May 1992, the newspaper was known for its extensive reporting on the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, and was therefore regularly accused of making propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Its editors and staff have frequently been arrested and tried and resulted in multiple publication bans within Turkey. Since April 1994, the publication continued under different names until Özgür Gündem was relaunched on 14 April 2011.
On 16 August 2016, the newspaper was "temporarily" shut down following a court order, and some twenty journalists and editors were taken into custody. While others were released, novelist and Özgür Gündem columnist Aslı Erdoğan, editor in-chief Zana Kaya and newsroom editor İnan Kızılkaya remained imprisoned, facing charges of "membership of a terrorist organisation" and "undermining national unity." The closed newspaper was quickly succeeded by the digital newspaper Özgürlükçü Demokrasi ("Libertarian democracy"), which features a daily column "Aslı’s Friends". Its website is not accessible in Turkey.
There had been some (mainly weekly) publications before that aimed at propagating the rights of the Kurds in Turkey. They include:
Initiatives for a daily newspaper dealing with Kurdish issues in Turkey started in 1991. Under the leadership of the journalist Ragıp Duran, Özgür Gündem (Free Agenda) began publication on 30 May 1992 and reached a circulation of up to 60,000. Due to financial restraints it stopped publication between 15 January and 26 April 1993.
From the beginning the paper was particularly known for its extensive coverage of the ongoing conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish guerrilla army, which was being downplayed by mainstream Turkish media. One of the first editors-in-chief was the Turkish journalist Ocak Işık Yurtçu. During Yurtçu's tenure as editor, the paper's circulation grew to more than 100,000, a record for an independent Turkish paper.
...
Wikipedia