Within February 17-23, 2020, five articles that generate hate speech were selected from print media. You can find three articles that contain hate speech against Armenians, Greeks, Russians, and Syrians as well as the analyses written about them below.1

1. Özdemir İnce, in his column titled “There is something afoot here” criticizes the ansar-muhajir metaphor regarding Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees. Many times throughout the column, he emphasizes that migrants are abusing hospitality. He repeats several negative sentiments and marginalizing discourses about the identity as we see in the following remarks: “In any case, Syrians are not muhajir in Turkey. They are unwanted guests now, if not from the very beginning. Turkish people who feel harassed are not ansar. The truth is Syrians do not see themselves as guests or muhajir. Whatever they think, they resemble the Oghuz who came to Anatolia in 1071 or European migrants who went to North America and pillaged Native Americans’ lands. They move their cults to Turkey and build castles, buy houses and shops, open coffee shops and businesses. They found a new company each day. They make thousands of babies each year. Who would breed this much in a country where they live as muhajir? There is something called birth control. You might think that being muhajir sometimes causes sexual arousal, but it is actually the opposite. They are either mindless creatures unable to grasp their situation or they are ‘promised’ or ‘guaranteed’ something by the AKP government.” In general, the column insults and targets Syrians.

2. Rahmi Turan, in his column criticizing Turkey’s foreign policy regarding Syria, labels Syrians in Turkey as an economic and political burden as we see in the following remark: “What did we get? / We got 5 million Syrians… / Refugees are a hump in our backs with all their burdens!” While he reinforces negative judgments about Syrians, he also foments anti-migrant opinions.

3. Yıldıray Çiçek, in his column criticizing Doğu Perinçek’s political position, accuses Perinçek with the following remarks: “Perinçek is like a spacecraft wandering around the political universe and enters into the orbit of Russians one day, and then China, then Armenians, Greeks, Syrians or PKK.” Then he accuses Perinçek of being “Greek supporter” and defines the period leading up to Cyprus war as “Greek atrocity”, using a hostile and marginalizing language against the mentioned ethnic identities.

4. In his column, Abdullah Karagöz complains about beggars: “As if ours are not enough, we are dealing with beggars imported from Syria!”, “Syrian women who beg for money on streets with their children, saying ‘God bless you (!)”. With these remarks, he emphasizes that Syrians are the ones who beg and uses anti-migrant discourse.

5. Ahmet Özdemir, in his column titled “Liberation of Erzincan”, writes: “All the things Erzincan saw and experienced before the earthquake. The pain of Russian occupation aggravated by Armenian atrocities”, “On July 11, 1916, Erzincan was also occupied and pillaged by Russians. In addition to Russians, Armenians seized the opportunity to form armed troops in occupied places”, “With the Erzincan treaty signed on December 18, 1917, Russian soldiers left the region on January 11, 1918, but Armenian gangs went on with their actions and caused deadly events. Armenians carried out massacres. They were killing people on the roads and in mosques. Non-Armenian people couldn’t have left their homes, trying to meet their needs by going to each other through the holes on the walls. People were killed and thrown into wells.” In this way, he attributes historical atrocities to Armenian and Russian people and portrays them as enemies.

^{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.}