Not Google or Facebook but states remain the biggest threat to free speech

Earlier this month, as I prepared myself for a retinal scan to enter a notorious prison in Istanbul, my mind wandered beyond freedom of press to equally important areas for the media and all of us, such as privacy rights, network security, governments, Big Tech, advertisers and concentration of power.

The prison is notorious not because of its physical conditions but because it held dozens of journalists in the past few years, including three from daily Cumhuriyet: International Press Institute (IPI) National Committee chairman Kadri Gürsel and IPI members Ahmet Şık and Murat Sabuncu.

Five days after my prison visit as IPI's National Committee deputy chair, the court rejected once again the demand of the three journalists and Cumhuriyet CEO Akın Atalay to be released. 

When another trial session is held today, Gürsel, Sabuncu and Atalay would be under arrest for 330 days and Şık for 267 days. For over 300 days, we were not allowed to visit them in prison.

Independent monitors from Turkey and abroad unequivocally express that the charges are politically motivated. In a farcical way and with no real evidence but in their newspaper headlines, opinion columns and news reports, the defendants are accused of aiding terror organizations, the Turkish government's ally-turned-nemesis Gülen movement and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Şık was once arrested by Gülenist law enforcement officials for critically reporting on the movement's activities, and Gürsel, who has also always been critical of the Gülenists, was once even kidnapped by PKK militants! So, as IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis said before the previous hearing, "This case is about criminalizing journalism. It's about punishing...