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March 21, 2025 – Turkey –
Exiled Turkish journalists have raised alarms over increasing digital censorship by major tech companies, urging international accountability for platforms enabling authoritarian governments to suppress independent media. Speaking at a United Nations panel in Geneva, they highlighted how platforms like X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and Google comply with censorship requests from the Turkish government, citing the misuse of counterterrorism laws to stifle press freedom. The panel, organized by the International Journalists Association and the International Association for Human Rights Advocacy, called for reforms to ensure tech companies uphold free expression standards and resist government pressures.
United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan has reported that thousands of journalists have fled their home countries in recent years due to political repression, threats, and conflict. However, in exile, they often face physical, digital, and legal threats from their home governments, including assassination, assault, abduction, prosecution in absentia, and retaliation against family members. Khan emphasized that safety is compromised when host countries become complicit in transnational repression, such as by colluding in abductions instigated by the home state. She also noted that online violence, threats, hacking, and targeted digital surveillance of exiled journalists have surged over the past decade, with women journalists in exile particularly at risk of sexual and gender-based violence.
These developments underscore the urgent need for international mechanisms to protect journalists in exile from digital censorship and transnational repression. While the United Nations and human rights organizations continue to advocate for the safety and rights of journalists, the increasing alignment of tech platforms with authoritarian demands poses significant challenges to press freedom and the protection of journalists worldwide.
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