Kaya Genc, Author at Index on Censorship Index on Censorship

How ‘industrial football’ was used to silence protests

Football fans turned out in large numbers during the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. They’ve paid the price since

It’s not easy being green

Environmental activism is alive and well in Turkey, despite the peddling of conspiracy theories and government efforts to discredit campaigners

Turkish censors vs Netflix, series 1 episode 1

All that is solid in the Turkish media melted into air over the past year, and much of the entertainment content have migrated from traditional platforms to streaming services like YouTube and Netflix.

Kaya Genç: On “coup plots”, journalism trials and Turkey’s need for a proper dissensus

The modern crisis in Turkey's journalistic freedoms began in 2008. Index on Censorship magazine's Kaya Genc revisits the "coup cases" that ended up turning Turkish journalism into a field of feuds and hostilities

Turkey: Number of “insulting Turkishness” cases drops as parliament discusses changing definition of citizenship

There has been a significant decrease in the number of cases brought under Turkey’s infamous Article 301, a recent news investigation has shown. But the law continues to be rigorously implemented. The original version of Article 301 made it illegal to insult “Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions”. This was changed in 2008 […]

Why was this Turkish sociologist given a life sentence?

Fifteen years after she was detained for allegedly perpetrating a terrorist attack in Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar, and eleven years after she was acquitted of those charges, the Turkish sociologist Pınar Selek again found herself on the wrong side of the law when Turkey’s High Court sentenced her to aggravated life imprisonment last week. The Court […]

The trouble with Taraf

Kaya Genç looks at how Turkey's "first truly liberal newspaper" has shaken up the country's media

As Turkey lifts ban against hundreds of books, we discover how comic Captain Miki offended the Turkish state

Judging by sales figures, Turkish readers love comics magazines and graphic novels, but the political and military leaders of the country have had little patience for them, an examination of Turkey’s banned books revealed last month. On 5 January 2013, the Turkish government will lift bans against 453 books and 645 periodicals blacklisted over a 63 […]

Turkish Prime Minister takes on historical soap opera

In Turkey, television drama is big business. A handful of big-budget productions attract millions of viewers every week, both at home and abroad. According to Abdullah Çelik, the head of property rights department in the culture ministry, more than 65 million dollars were received from foreign television companies in acquisitions of TV dramas, with more […]