(with Nacho Sánchez Amor) Turkey’s ‘disinformation’ law and access process

IPI Press Freedom Podcasts

Host: Cansu Çamlıbel | Guest: MEP Nacho Sánchez Amor

In this thirty-first episode, host Cansu Çamlıbel invites Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament's rapporteur on Turkey, to discuss Turkey’s newly adopted “disinformation” law and its potential ramifications as well as the systemic impediments to Turkey’s becoming a mature democracy and the European Union’s role in assessing the progress of Turkey in the European Union accession process.

Çamlıbel highlighted the law’s lack of definition of “deceptive information” as a key problem. As the task of defining “disinformation” in each case falls upon an individual judge, given the lack of judicial independence in Turkey, the government’s arbitrary power to criminalize critical speech is likely to increase. In response, Amor stated that “the problem is the whole complete environment that has been designed to prosecute criticism”, with the “disinformation” law being “another turn of the screw of the authoritarian trend in Turkey”.

Topics covered in this podcast include:

• The systematic efforts of the Turkish government to silence criticism in the country
• The “disinformation” law adopted by the Turkish parliament on October 13, 2022
• The Turkish government’s interference in the private communication of citizens
• The lack of independence of Turkey’s judiciary and its impediment of the country’s progress towards EU accession
• The EU’s role in assessing Turkey’s progress towards EU membership

This content was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of IPI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.