DIYARBAKIR, Turkey: A news website in the Kurdish-majority Turkish city of Diyarbakir, staffed only by women, has been repeatedly shut down by the authorities over alleged terror propaganda but it is refusing to give up the fight to publish.
Jin News Agency, from the Kurdish word for woman “Jin,” focuses on Kurdish and women’s issues and publishes in Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and English.
Written for women, it is run by a female-only team from the accountant to the photographer, and editors to camerawomen.
The agency, set up in 2012, has come under pressure from the Turkish authorities who have closed it twice and shut off access to the agency seven times.
Turkish authorities accuse the agency of making “terror propaganda” for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984.
The PKK is proscribed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies and since the breakdown of a cease-fire in 2015 Turkey has launched a relentless crackdown against the group.
The crackdown has been wide, with media seen as sympathetic to the PKK finding themselves in the crosshairs of the authorities.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has argued there is no difference between a “terrorist holding a gun or a bomb or those who use their pen to serve their aims.”
Turkey stepped up the campaign after the failed July 2016 coup attempt, with dozens of media outlets accused of links to putschists and the PKK closed down.
There are currently six legal cases against Jin News Agency accusing it of “terror propaganda.”
Its website is blocked in Turkey.
The agency rejects the accusations and says that the issue is one of press freedom.
It is continuing to publish news but the articles can only be read on social media and accessible via Virtual Private Networks (VPN).
Camerawoman Beritan Elyakut, based in Diyarbakir and working for the agency for five years, complained the website was unable to “reach the outside world.”
“What else can we do?” she added as she filmed a story ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, saying the website used six different domain names “but closures continued uninterrupted.”
The latest website domain, jinnews7.com, was blocked in Turkey on February 22 after AFP spoke to Elyakut.
The website, funded by subsriptions, tackles topics that are off limits for Turkish media, including the fate of Abdullah Ocalan the PKK leader jailed for life by Turkey for terror offenses.
It has offered its critical take on Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish militia in Syria and has also written about the disappearance in Iraq last year of two Turkish agents.
Critics say that the government has widened the definition of “terror propaganda” to an absurd width. But officials insist the measures are needed with the country fighting multiple terror groups.
After the the news site was shut down the first time, the women journalists renamed the agency “Sujin” meaning “packing needle” in Kurdish.
But in August 2017, Sujin was shut down by another emergency decree and they then renamed themselves Jin News.
While it once had 60 journalists in text, photo and video working for the agency across the country including Istanbul, Ankara and the Aegean city of Izmir, this has now fallen to 25. Eight women work in the Diyarbakir office but most work from home.
“Women are persecuted, and as a women’s news agency we must show this,” said Safiye Alagas, a photographer who has been working with the agency for six years, adding that it had “become a target” as a result.
Turkish female-only news site fights ‘terror propaganda’ ban
Turkish female-only news site fights ‘terror propaganda’ ban
UK, France mull social media bans for youth as debate rages
- Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia’s lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media
PARIS: Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia’s lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media, but experts are still locked in a debate over the effectiveness of the move.
Supporters of a ban warn that action needs to be taken to tackle deteriorating mental health among young people, but others say the evidence is inconclusive and want a more nuanced approach.
Australia last month became the first nation to prohibit people under-16s from using immensely popular and profitable social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube.
France is currently debating bills for a similar ban for under-15s, including one championed by President Emmanuel Macron.
The Guardian reported last week that Jonathan Haidt, an American psychologist and supporter of the Australian ban, had been asked to speak to UK government officials.
Haidt argued in his bestselling 2024 book “The Anxious Generation” that too much time looking at screens — particularly social media — was rewiring children’s brains and “causing an epidemic of mental illness.”
While influential among politicians, the book has proven controversial in academic circles.
Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers wrote in a review of the book that the “scary story” Haidt was telling was “not supported by science.”
One of the main areas of disagreement has been determining exactly how much effect using social media has on young people’s mental health.
Michael Noetel, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia, told AFP that “small effects across billions of users add up.”
There is “plenty of evidence” that social media does harm to teens, he said, adding that some were demanding an unrealistic level of proof.
“My read is that Haidt is more right than his harshest critics admit, and less right than his book implies,” Noetel said.
Given the potential benefit of a ban, he considered it “a bet worth making.”
After reviewing the evidence, France’s public health watchdog ANSES ruled last week that social media had numerous detrimental effects for adolescents — particularly girls — while not being the sole reason for their declining mental health.
Everything in moderation?
Noetel led research published in Psychological Bulletin last year that reviewed more than 100 studies worldwide on the links between screens and the psychological and emotional problems suffered by children and adolescents.
The findings suggested a vicious cycle.
Excessive screen time — particularly using social media and playing video games — was associated with problems. This distress then drove youngsters to look at their screens even more.
However, other researchers are wary of a blanket ban.
Ben Singh from the University of Adelaide tracked more than 100,000 young Australians over three years for a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study found that the young people with the worst wellbeing were those who used social media heavily — more than two hours a day — or not at all. It was teens who used social networks moderately that fared the best.
“The findings suggest that both excessive restriction and excessive use can be problematic,” Singh told AFP.
Again, girls suffered the most from excessive use. Being entirely deprived of social media was found to be most detrimental for boys in their later teens.
’Appallingly toxic’
French psychiatrist Serge Tisseron is among those who have long warned about the huge threat that screens pose to health.
“Social media is appallingly toxic,” he told AFP.
But he feared a ban would easily be overcome by tech-savvy teens, at the same time absolving parents of responsibility.
“In recent years, the debate has become extremely polarized between an outright ban or nothing at all,” he said, calling for regulation that walks a finer line.
Another option could be to wait and see how the Australian experiment pans out.
“Within a year, we should know much more about how effective the Australian social media ban has been and whether it led to any unintended consequences,” Cambridge University researcher Amy Orben said.
Last week, Australia’s online safety watchdog said that tech companies have already blocked 4.7 million accounts for under 16s.
