In the four-month period covering January – February – March – April 2015, 270 columns and news articles targeting national, ethnic and religious communities had been scanned and a total of 278 hate speech items were found.
In this period covering the first four months of 2015, there was a decrease in the number of publications containing hate speech compared to the previous period; however, for example, the fact that hate speech against Syrians has become widespread shows that this quantitative change does not amount to softening in content. In the first period of the year, during the New Year’s celebrations, hate speech against Christians especially increased, as in the previous years. We also found out that hate speech was generated regarding Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s to a dinner with representatives of several religions as part of “Meeting of religions against Islamophobia”; the attack against Charlie Hebdo, a humor magazine published in France; the killing of three young people in their homes in the United States of America; and finally the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on April 24th.
Although the ranking of the groups that have been subjected to hate speech, hostility and othering in Turkish press changed, the targeted groups remained almost the same in this period. In the first quarter of the year, it is found that Armenians were the ones who were subjected to hate speech most with 103 items. Jews have the second place with 75 items, while Christians ranked third with 73 items. The British, Syrians, Non-Muslims, Kurds, Rûms, Atheists followed them with 21, 16, 14, 13, 12 and 11 items respectively as the groups subjected to hate speech.
Among the 43 items analyzed under the title “Other Disadvantaged Groups” including hate speech targeting women and LGBTI, 29 items contain hate speech towards LGBTI individuals. Hate speech towards women is detected in 14 items within the period and publications observed.
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