Within January 14-20, 2019, three articles that generate hate speech were selected. You can find these articles that contain hate speech against Jews, Syrians and Greeks as well as the analyses written about them below.1
1.
The article published in Akşam with the title “Greeks sank, the solider saved” reports the immigrant boat that sank in the Aegean Sea. The article focuses on the claim that Greek coastal guard made the boat sink and holds Greek identity responsible for the incident due to this claim. With the titles “Greeks sank, the solider saved” and “Greek cruelty”, negative opinions about Greeks are created. With the statements like ““Greeks sank, the solider saved” and “Turkish coastal guard saved the refugees who were left to die”, an opposition and moral hierarchy between Turkish and Greek identities are created. In this way, the article reinforces negative opinions about Greek identity and cements the perception of enmity. |
2.
The article published in Yeni Dönem with the title “Jews got wild again” reports the tension between Israeli police and Kubbetu’s Sahra workers in Al-Aqsa Mosque. The newspaper holds the Israeli police responsible and attributes this responsibility to Jewish identity with the title. Thus, the article reinforces negative opinions about Jewish identity and cements the perception of enmity. |
3.
Akın Aydın, in his column titled “Majority of people leaving Syria are young males”, shares his ideas about Syrian refugees in Turkey based on his idea that Syrian refugees are a “threat” against Turkey. Aydın regards Syrian refugees’ presence in Turkey as a threat; he associates Syrian identity with crime and labels them as the cause certain economic problems in Turkey as we see in the following remarks: “What provokes the society? Syrians’ widespread involvement in offences like rape, child abuse, murder, battery, threat, prostitution, blackmail, robbery, theft, abduction, organized crime. Another element of disturbance is Syrians who enjoy themselves in beaches, malls and parks in Turkey while our soldiers are under fire in Syria. You see what happened on the New Year’s Eve. Another disturbance is the government who always embraces Syrians and talks about the opportunities given to them while the tragedies caused by unemployment, inflation, university graduates’ inability to find jobs and poverty are seen. 95,000 young Syrians between the ages of 19 and 25, who are doing who knows what, is a threat against our country, which is targeted by global powers, in such a troublesome time.” In this way, the author reinforces negative opinions about Syrian identity and targets Syrian refugees by labelling them as a social and economic “threat”. |
1. Within the scope of the media monitoring work focusing on hate speech, all national newspapers and around 500 local newspapers are monitored based on pre-determined keywords (e.g. Traitor, apostate, refugee, Christian, Jewish, separatist, etc.) via the media monitoring center. While the main focus has been hate speech on the basis of national, ethnic and religious identities; sexist and homophobic discourses are also examined as part of the monitoring work.
