The winners of the 29th edition of the Metin Göktepe Journalism Prize have been announced. This year, the photography award goes to journalist Adnan Bilen from the Kurdish news agency Mezopotamya (MA) for his photograph “Witness Under the Boot.” The awarded image was taken at the end of January in Van province during a protest against the then offensive of the Syrian transitional government on Rojava and documents the treatment of Emrah Kertiş, a representative of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV). The photograph captures a moment in which Kertiş is pinned to the ground while Turkish police use violence against him.
The awards, named after Evrensel reporter Metin Göktepe, are presented annually to honor critical journalism and to support young media professionals. The winners were determined by a jury of journalists. In the “Text” category, Hazar Dost (Aposto) and Cengiz Anıl Bölükbaş (T24) were awarded. Due to the high number of qualified submissions, the jury also granted several special awards in this category, including for investigations into police violence, prison conditions, and environmental destruction. The “Video” award went to Emre Şimşek (T24), who investigated the death of journalist Hakan Tosun in Istanbul. A special award in this category was given for a report on living conditions in a neighborhood of Silivri.
Award ceremony on April 10
In the field of local journalism, Akın Bodur was awarded for a report on language barriers in healthcare in Hatay province, which was severely affected by the 2023 earthquake on the Turkish-Syrian border. The work shows the consequences that lack of communication can have for diagnosis and care. However, particular emphasis was placed on the situation of journalists overall: the jury granted a special award under the title “Imprisoned Journalists and Journalism Under Attack,” highlighting increasing repression, arrests, and pressure against media workers. This special award went to Fadime Göktepe, the mother of Metin Göktepe, who always honored journalists with the words, “You are all Metin.” The award ceremony will take place on April 10, Metin Göktepe’s birthday.
Who was Metin Göktepe?
Metin Göktepe was an Alevi Kurd from Sivas and had only been working as a journalist for three years. He dealt with the silenced problems of the country, such as resistance in prisons or the struggle for survival in Istanbul’s shanty neighborhoods, and followed the vigils of the Saturday Mothers, who still gather every week at Galatasaray Square to draw attention to the fate of their relatives who were murdered by death squads or “disappeared” in custody.
Arrested while documenting a funeral
On January 8, 1996, Göktepe was covering the funeral of political prisoners Orhan Özen and Rıza Baybaş. Both had been killed just four days earlier, along with two other inmates, during the violent suppression of an uprising in Ümraniye Prison. The funeral ceremony of the prisoners turned into what pro-government newspapers at the time described as an “illegal demonstration” and the Istanbul police decided to violently disperse the mourning ceremony. 1,052 people were detained and distributed to various police stations; 705 ended up in the sports hall of the Eyüp district due to lack of space – including Metin Göktepe. He is said to have been beaten already on the bus. Later, in the hall, he was beaten to death by several police officers in front of dozens of detainees. His body was found a few hundred meters from the sports hall.
Authorities did not acknowledge the detention
The police initially did not acknowledge Göktepe’s detention at all. Later, they claimed that the journalist had fallen from a wall. This account was also supported by then Foreign Minister Tansu Çiller, whose term as Prime Minister left a distinctive trail of blood: thousands of destroyed Kurdish villages, a scorched-earth policy, millions displaced, extrajudicial executions by death squads, among whose countless victims were also journalists. An example of Çiller’s hostility toward the free press was the bombing of the editorial offices of the Kurdish newspaper Özgür Ülke.
Police officers convicted after a long trial and later amnestied
Only after an autopsy proved that Metin Göktepe had died from kicks and blows with fists and batons, and after video footage emerged, were investigations initiated against the police officers involved under public pressure. The report stated: “The autopsy shows that death occurred due to brain hemorrhages as well as hemorrhages in the tissue caused by severe cranial trauma.” It also noted that the body had “many severe traumatic lesions and a rib fracture.” Five of the eleven police officers charged with involvement in Göktepe’s killing were sentenced to prison after a lengthy trial, which the judiciary moved to Afyon in Anatolia “for security reasons.” They were the first police officers in Turkey ever to be legally convicted for the killing of a journalist. Nevertheless, they were released after one year and eight months in prison as part of an amnesty.
Leave a Reply