Abdullah Bozkurt/ Stockholm
Turkey’s notorious intelligence agency, Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT), has indirectly admitted in its latest report that targeting journalists in exile remains a key objective — aligned with the authoritarian agenda of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Released earlier this month, the report provides a broad overview of MIT’s operations over the past year, aimed at casting a favorable light on the agency’s activities while omitting details of its covert operations. However, a careful reading between the lines reveals the agency’s underlying priorities, cloaked in secrecy and bolstered by sweeping legal impunity.
MIT asserts that it has actively countered what it describes as “disinformation campaigns” abroad, without specifying the precise actions undertaken or identifying the individuals targeted. However, the vague wording leaves little doubt that exiled journalists — who have fled Turkey’s systematic crackdown on press freedom under Erdogan’s regime — are the primary focus.
The report inadvertently underscores the resilience of a dynamic community of journalists in exile who continue to produce a diverse and credible stream of information, offering critical insights into the Erdogan government’s actions both domestically and internationally. This unrelenting flow of independent reporting appears to pose a significant challenge to the Turkish authorities, compelling them to mobilize state intelligence resources in an attempt to silence dissenting voices abroad.
The targeting of journalists in exile is an extension of the systematic dismantling of the independent media in Turkey. Over the past decade the government has imprisoned hundreds of journalists, solidifying Turkey’s reputation as one of the world’s worst offenders of press freedom. Major media outlets, including Zaman — the country’s best-selling daily — and prominent television networks, have been forcibly shut down due to their critical stance on Erdogan’s administration.
Performance report for the Turkish intelligence agency for the year 2024:
This widespread crackdown between the years of 2014 and 2017 precipitated an exodus of journalists seeking refuge in Europe and North America. While some have managed to re-establish their careers, often under precarious conditions, their continued investigative reporting on Turkey has drawn the government’s ire, prompting Ankara to deploy a range of security, legal and financial measures to suppress them.
Among the strategies employed against exiled journalists are politically motivated prosecutions, sham trials and fabricated criminal charges — typically under terrorism or defamation laws — aimed at delegitimizing their work. The Turkish government has also seized assets, issued international arrest warrants and placed journalists on wanted lists along with members of recognized terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
In doing so the Erdogan government sought to manipulate the financial intelligence data provided to financial and banking institutions abroad by data-gathering corporations. This manipulation aimed to prevent journalists from opening bank accounts and transferring funds to support themselves and their newly established media organizations. There have been instances in Europe and the US where journalists have abruptly lost their accounts due to this manipulated financial intelligence originating from Turkey.
Furthermore, Turkey has exploited international legal mechanisms to target journalists in exile, filing frivolous extradition requests and pressuring INTERPOL to issue notices for them. Ankara has even attempted to obstruct their participation in high-profile events at intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
On a more clandestine level, MIT has been tasked with monitoring and surveilling these journalists, tracking their locations and activities, hacking their digital communications and, in some cases, devising plans for abduction or physical harm. Assassination plots have also been considered, contingent upon political authorization from Ankara.
The question then arises: Why does the Erdogan government fear exiled journalists so deeply that it resorts to extreme measures to silence them? The primary reason for this aggressive campaign is the government’s profound fear of the revelations produced by these journalists. Their investigations have exposed Turkey’s illegal intelligence operations, including arms trafficking, drug smuggling — particularly in cocaine networks — and rampant corruption within the regime.
Operating beyond Turkey’s borders, these journalists are free to publish sensitive information that exposes the government’s misdeeds, something MIT perceives as a direct threat to Erdogan’s authority and legitimacy.
Another pressing concern for the Turkish government is the erosion of its carefully controlled domestic narrative. While state-controlled media in Turkey promotes government propaganda, and even the opposition media is largely co-opted, the factual reporting of exiled journalists threatens to undermine this constructed reality. Their work has the potential to disrupt the government’s control over public perception and weaken its grip on power.
In response Ankara has pursued a campaign of defamation against these journalists, branding them as traitors, foreign agents, coup plotters and terrorists. These smear tactics are designed not only to discredit their reporting but also to sever their networks and isolate them from potential sources. By instilling fear the government hopes to dissuade whistleblowers in Turkey from leaking sensitive information, thereby curbing the steady stream of damaging disclosures.
Furthermore, this campaign serves as a warning to both Turkish and foreign journalists covering Turkey. The government’s relentless persecution of journalists living in exile is intended to foster a climate of fear, discouraging critical reporting and reinforcing self-censorship among journalists.
As Turkey grapples with mounting economic and financial challenges, Erdogan’s administration remains acutely anxious about the influence of exiled journalists in shaping public discourse. There is a palpable fear that their reporting could embolden opposition movements, galvanize public discontent and ultimately contribute to a mass uprising against the regime — an outcome Erdogan, ever insecure, deeply dreads.
