The demonstrations began a week ago with a protest against the Turkish government’s plan to build a shopping mall in part of Istanbul’s Taksim Square. They spread late last week into larger nationwide demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), according to news reports. More than 1,000 have been injured in the last four days, the reports said.

“We call on Turkish police to ensure that journalists are able to cover these significant news events without being obstructed or attacked,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “Reporters have been caught between overzealous law enforcement and unruly crowds.”

Tugba Tekerek, correspondent for the daily Taraf, told CPJ that police tried to prevent her from taking photographs in Besiktas district in Istanbul on Sunday. She said she identified herself as a journalist to the officers. Tekerek also said several police wrested a scarf from her face, which she was using to shield herself from tear gas.

Police firing rubber bullets into a crowd in Taksim Square hit two reporters, ATV correspondent Mesut Çiftçi and cameraman Ismail Velioglu, on Sunday, the reports said. Staff at ATV told CPJ that Çiftçi was hit in the shoulder and Velioglu was hit in the hand, but neither suffered any broken bones or other trauma.

Caner Dalgıç, cameraman for the TV8 television, said protesters threw stones at him and chased him on Saturday afternoon. He told CPJ he was hit by two stones while getting out of his car to cover protests in Ankara, and sought shelter with the police.

Police detained Erhan Karadag, a bureau chief for Kanal D TV, in Ankara on Saturday night but released him the next day. Karadağ told CPJ he was arrested while carrying bottles of water and milk, which is used to soothe effects of tear gas.

Protesters also gathered in front of the studios of NTV on Monday and demonstrated against the outlet’s conservative editorial stance, according to news reports. NTV was among mainstream TV channels that had chosen to play down the anti-government protests that erupted in Istanbul and other cities. Many traditional media outlets, conscious of Erdogan’s harsh disapproval of critical coverage, opted to play down the protests, thereby incurring the discontent of demonstrators, who see them as failing to do their journalistic duty.

The offices of the pro-government Haberturk television and the daily newspaper Sabah were surrounded by protesters on both Sunday and Monday, according to news reports. Protesters shouted “sell-out media!” and called for a boycott of the mainstream channels, the reports said.

Demonstrators also attacked news vehicles during the protests on Saturday. The vans of TV channels NTV and Fox TV were sprayed with paint and pushed on their side, according to news reports. Posts on social media said TV channels CNN Turk, NTV, and Haberturk were being targeted because they had not covered the protests or had covered them from the government’s perspective.

Prime Minister Erdogan attacked social media networks for spreading what he considered to be false information and calling them the “worst menace to societies.” He said news outlets “under the roof of the [opposition] Republican People’s Party (CHP) [were making] highly irresponsible, provocative broadcasting.”

“When top government officials make anti-media statements, hostility against journalists is interpreted as allowed, even approved,” CPJ’s Ognianova said. “We urge Prime Minister Erdogan to publicly denounce the violence against journalists and ensure all media can work freely.”

The demonstrations began after a small band of environmentalists protested a government project to cut down trees in Taksim Square. Police moved in to the area, set fire to the protesters’ tents, and sprayed them with tear gas. Images of the attacks spread on social media, galvanizing thousands into protesting in Taksim Square.

Thanks to laws which punish dissent against the state, Turkey continues to put in jail a high number of  journalists every year. The government says it is curbing propaganda by Kurdish separatists, but the international community can’t but observe that Turkey has put more journalists in jail than any other country.

44 reporters, drawn mainly from Kurdish publications and news agencies, are on trial under the country’s anti-terrorism laws. The first hearing in September drew international publicity, but ended in chaos.

The public opinion is divided. Turkish parliamentary deputy Ertugrul Kurkcu of pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party stated that the situation is scandalous. Huseyin Akyol, editor of the pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem and a 23-year veteran of the paper, thinks that the fact there is a trial is a step in the right direction: “It is better than the past. In the 90s the state killed us, we lost 76 journalists and distributors and they blew up our offices. Now they just imprison us – although life in prison is difficult.”

A report published this month by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists found 76 journalists were imprisoned, with the government claiming that most of them are not legitimate journalists but rather “propagandists” for the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state for autonomy since 1984.

Emma Sinclair Webb, the Turkish representative of the US-based Human Rights Watch, says this mentality lies at the heart of Turkey’s anti-terror laws, and that is why so many journalists are ending up behind bars: “The anti-terror laws are so broadly written,  anything can be considered as supporting terrorism and according to the law that makes you a terrorist,” she states.

An example can be made of journalist Nedim Sener, who won international journalism awards for his work, which has included investigating an alleged conspiracy by the Turkish army against the present government. In the end, he has been accused of being involved in the very conspiracy he had been investigating.

After a long spell in jail, Mr Sener blames his detention on his ongoing investigation into the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, which is blamed on elements within the Turkish state. The government denied the charge, saying that authorities successfully caught and convicted Dink’s murderer.

The imprisonment of the high profile journalist worried the international community.

“There is absolutely no doubt, I have to say, that some of the journalists are in jail because they have written or broadcast things which are unpalatable to the government and to the authorities in this country,” stated Richard Howitt, member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. However,  “that is not just unpalatable to those of us in Brussels and European Union. It is unacceptable.”

The government claims it is committed to further reform, saying new legislation in parliament will address growing criticism against the jailing of journalists: “Thoughts should not be restricted by any limit,” declared deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay on Press Freedom Day last July, acknowledging that problems still exist. “In our current legislation, we still have some regulations keeping thoughts and violence together.”

Nevertheless, the European Union criticised Ankara’s “increasing tendency to imprison journalists, media workers and distributors,” in the annual progress report on Turkey’s membership bid, published this month

The report was immediately dismissed by Ankara. “Too much emphasis was placed on isolated incidents, and dangerous generalisations were reached through these isolated incidents,” stated Ergemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for EU relations.

“Self-censorship now is the basic instinct determining journalists behaviour when they write a news report,” says Kadri Gursel, a columnist for the Milliyet newspaper. ” For journalists the minimum threat is to be fired, the maximum is jail.”

The government says the media in Turkey is still free,but people have a different opinion. Recently, due to the situation, the country has witnessed a phenomenal rise in the alternative news through social media.

Mr Sener, only recently freed from prison, is not optimistic: “Journalists are afraid, but what is worse is that society is not talking about it, the fear has spread around the public. They are not breathing. And I see this as a very dangerous course for Turkey.

Security forces have launched a major campaign of raids on media institutions, both in Baghdad and throughout Iraq the NGO stated.

According to statistics of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory & the Metro Center to Defend Journalists (KRG), the number of attacks on journalists all over Iraq amount to more than 160 cases, including about 60 violations In the Kurdistan region alone.

The JFO also documented, in images and video clips, assaults against several journalists by security forces in the region.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory expresses its concern of recent attacks against the press, strongly condemns them and calls on the Iraqi government to take action to reduce these attacks and violations. It also calls on authorities to investigate all attacks against journalists and media institutions and bring those responsible to justice.

Violence against journalists and restrictions on media have worsened in the past year in Iraq, in a country already thought to have among the worst press freedoms in the world.

Iraq ranked 152nd out of the 179 countries in media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) 2010-1011 World Press Freedom Index.