Journalist wounded in shooting attack in northwestern Turkey

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for a full and impartial investigation into yesterday’s shooting attack on a Turkish journalist in the northwestern city of Balıkesir. The investigators should consider the possibility that it was a reprisal for the victim’s journalism, RSF said.

The owner of Yenigün, a recently closed local newspaper, Levent Uysal was hospitalized after being shot in the leg at around 1 a.m. yesterday by two motorcyclists who were waiting for him outside his home.

“We are extremely concerned by this latest in a series of attacks on local journalists in Turkey,” said Erol Önderoğlu, RSF’s Turkey representative. “We call on the police to carry out a full and effective investigation that consider all hypotheses, including the possibility that it was a reprisal linked to Levent Uysal’s journalistic activities.”

Violence against media personnel has surged since an extremely tense campaign for local elections at the end of March, with physical attacks on around ten journalists from March to June.

As the rule of law is steadily dismantled in Turkey, the situation of its media has become increasingly precarious, especially since a coup attempt in July 2016. Turkey is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.