A Press Release from Turkey on “Calling Media to the Peace Discourse”

Both in History and in recent situation in the Middle East and in the Balkans we have seen that the chosen language of war and conflict has left only tragedy and suffering for society to endure.

All kinds of media discourse supports the spread of social decomposition, and this dangerous lack of social consciousness makes it much more difficult to achieve social and political peace.

The violent language wounds our chances of peaceful cohabitation, and it opens the door to more negativity within society, as people engage in their social contracts.

The socio-political backdrop that keeps us together seems to be lost when we explore beyond the limits of freedom of expression and in turn this creates hate speech, and leads to racism in media production.

Therefore, all media members have a responsibility to count every word they write to measure the provocative or soothing effective it may have.

On the other hand,  political-economic pressure blocking free communication in the media world is also a major obstacle.  Media outlets and journalists are being attacked, with decisions made to block access to the media and journalists being made unemployed. These are signs of a dark period in terms of freedom of expression.

Hate speech can be spread easily, and extremists who want to destroy social peace can take advantage of this fluid media environment, which in turn allows people to take to the streets in order to further their attacks in the real world.

Groups of people can use both verbal and physical violence without legitimate reason.

We invite Turkey’s public to take a common stand against discriminatory language in social media, to counteract  media induced confrontation, and to help relieve the threat to our freedom of expression.

We urge you, the public, to ethically find a meeting of minds between language and social peace.