Several independent Turkish media outlets have been denied accreditation to cover an upcoming NATO summit in Ankara, according to Turkish journalism groups. The groups called the decision an affront to media freedoms.
U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to join leaders from the 32-member alliance for the July 7-8 summit, where they will discuss defense spending and aim to project unity.
Journalists from news organizations described as opposition-leaning or independent, including Halk TV, Sozcu TV, Cumhuriyet newspaper, T24 news website, and ANKA news agency, have been excluded from covering the event, the Turkish Journalists' Association and other media solidarity groups reported. The affected journalists were not provided with a reason for the rejection and were not offered an opportunity to appeal the decision.
"Preventing certain media outlets from covering events of public importance undermines freedom of information and reporting," the Turkish Journalists' Association stated. "International organizations must act in line with the democratic values they claim to uphold."
NATO spokeswoman Allison Hart said in a statement that for summits held outside NATO headquarters in Brussels, the alliance relies on the host country to assess and approve journalists from that nation. "We are in contact with Turkish authorities on accreditation for the NATO Summit in Ankara. It is very important for NATO that media can attend major events in person," she said.
Turkish officials have not yet commented on the accreditation issue. The summit comes amid wide-ranging security precautions in Turkey, where security forces detained more than 200 individuals suspected of links to extremist groups earlier this week, according to the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office. However, opposition parties and media reports indicated that those detained included a politician, an academic, a journalist, a prominent LGBTQ activist, and lawyers.
Human Rights Watch also criticized the detentions, urging NATO to ensure that basic democratic rights are respected during the summit. "The misuse of terrorism laws to conduct mass arrests and silence people in the run-up to a NATO summit flies in the face of the founding values of the alliance," said Benjamin Ward, the group’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia. "The authorities should immediately release those detained, and NATO should insist that peaceful expression and assembly must be permitted around the summit."
The Turkish government's Communications Directorate maintained on Thursday that those detained "were assessed to have been involved in activities connected to various terrorist organizations."