Within October 1-16, 2020, three articles that generate hate speech were selected from print media. You can find three articles that contain hate speech against  Armenians, Jews, and Syrians, as well as the analyses are written about them below. .¹

1. Yasin Aktay, in his column titled “If you don’t have the power to defend yourself, no one would give you what is rightfully yours”, repeatedly uses the descriptions “Armenian occupation” and “Armenian attacks”. By just saying “Armenians” in a generalizing way instead of using more accurate and clear definitions like “Armenia” or “Armenian army”, he holds all Armenians responsible for the conflicts in question and generates hate speech against this identity. Escalating polarization in society, this discourse reinforces negative sentiments about and enmity against Armenian identity.

2. Yeni Şafak, October 8, 2020 Selçuk Türkyılmaz, in his column titled “What the missile dropped to Ganja tells”, implies that Armenian people has been exhibiting the same negative characteristics throughout the history by associating historical events happened in 1918 with the present. By referring to “Armenians” as the responsible party of the historical claims, he holds all Armenians responsible. And he writes: “In the last century, Armenians managed to conceal historical truths by using the power of propaganda. They distorted and rewritten historical truths when the Westerners spoke on behalf of us.” With this statement, he accuses Armenians and Westerners of distorting historical truths and reinforces the negative sentiments about them. In general, the article reinforces enmity against Armenian identity.

3. Yeni Akit, October 13, 2020 The article published in Yeni Akit with the title “Occupant Jews attack Palestinians picking olives: 5 injured” reports an attack happened in the West Bank. The newspaper generates hate speech against Jewish identity by accusing Jewish identity of occupying lands. It uses a biased discourse that escalates polarization and reinforces enmity against Jews.

4. Dokuz Sütun, October 14, 2020 The article published in Dokuz Sütun with the title “Greeks marched to the Turkish side” reports a nationalist soccer club’s march to the Deryneia Border Gate in a distorted way that holds all Greeks responsible. Moreover, the newspaper creates a negative perception about this identity by associating Greeks with aggression and violence, and foments the polarization in the region and society.

5. Yeniçağ, October 14, 2020 The article published in Yeniçağ with the title “Heinous attack by rabid Armenians” reports protests staged in Canada concerning the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia by people from both groups. The article also covers the alleged attack on a support convoy consisting of people from Azerbaijan and Turkey, but it generates hate speech against Armenians with the word “rabid” even though the identity of the attackers is unknown. And with the description “heinous attack”, negative perception about Armenian identity is created in association with violence.

6. Yeni Akit, October 14, 2020 The article published in Yeni Akit with the title “Greeks’ infidelity and Turks’ compassion once again” reports that Turkish side found migrants in lifeboats near Karaada and transferred them to the migration office. However, with the description “Greek infidelity” in the title, Greek identity is identified with a cruel and negative perception and hate speech is generated against this identity. Moreover, identifying Turkey with an emotion that is in stark contrast, namely “compassion”, the newspaper triggers enmity between societies and reinforces polarization.

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.