This past week has seen a graphic hostage situation in Istanbul. A prosecutor named Mehmet Selim Kiraz had been investigating the death of a boy who had been injured by police during a protest in 2013. When a group known as the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front took Kiraz hostage, Turkey banned media coverage on the crisis. The situation ended when both the gunmen and the prosecutor were killed.
Whereas the turnout was very tragic, one must think why the media coverage had been halted. The prime ministry of Turkey says that a ban can be introduced "under circumstances that national security clearly requires or poses possible threats against the public order." It seems that this ban was a tactical decision put in place to try and dissolve the situation and end it as peacefully as possible. In the event the hostage-takers were able to see how authorities were handling the situation, perhaps they'd have been given an advantage. Unfortunately this ban did not help the situation.
This is not the first time Turkey has imposed a media ban. The country has a notorious history of banning media coverage of certain events. In the past four years, matters of security and politics have both been banned from media coverage. As a matter of fact, there have been over 150 media stiflings in the past four years. In the case of the hostage situation, this seems reasonable. From the looks of things, Turkey has some more media bannings up its sleeve for the future. It begs to question how are they discriminating between these bannings, if they are at all?