Journalist-to-Refugee Pipeline
Arzu Yildiz leans back into her seat, taking a break from Ubering around Toronto, as she recounts her journey to Canada. As a teenager in Turkey, Yildiz valued her freedom and passion for boxing above all else.
Going to university seemed out of reach, but after unexpectedly achieving high scores in the entrance exams, she attended Istanbul Bilgi University, where she started her journey into journalism and truth-telling. She worked as a human-interest reporter for her university newspaper before switching to an independent documentary company and eventually landing a position at the Turkish national newspaper, Taraf.
Working late at the office, surrounded by the glowing lights of Anarka, she found herself wondering about the lives of those who lived there; who they were, what was important to them, and who protected them from being taken advantage of.
In our interview, she talked about the cost of exposing the truth. While working for Taraf, she covered stories about Turkish President Erdogan and his son Bilal “mysteriously” receiving millions of dollars in cash, as well as one very prominent story about the Turkish Intelligence Agency sending guns to armed groups in Syria. After her story about gun running to Syria broke, the government quickly noticed her work and retaliated by taking custody of her two kids.
Following the July 15th Turkish military attempt to topple President Erdogan’s government, Yildiz shared on Facebook a photo of the police arrests showing hundreds of civilians handcuffed and lying on the floor of a gymnasium with the caption “Torture is a crime against humanity.” That same night, the police issued a warrant for her arrest for spreading propaganda and ransacked her home looking for her. It was just by chance that she had stayed with her parents that night and escaped being one of the people on the same gym floor.
Her first instinct was to challenge the police in court but with the increased persecution of journalists after the coup attempt, she was forced to go into hiding. She made the heart-wrenching decision to leave her children with her parents and, hopefully, allow them to be free without her. For 5 months she lived an underground life and used a fake name to stay out of the police reach. But living in fear, unable to go outside, was not a way to live; it was not freedom.
With the help of smugglers, she escaped to neighboring Greece before embarking on the long journey to Paris, the US, and finally to Canada.
In between driving Uber and spending time with her kids, she still has a passion for exposing the truth. She writes for various news outlets in Canada and is outspoken about the difficulties of exiled journalists in continuing their careers after seeking asylum. Now a Canadian citizen, she prides herself on identifying as a refugee. “It makes me more comfortable, and it gives me more freedom… now more people try to cross the border in bad conditions, and I can identify with their pain.”
Her book containing the stories of 15 exiled journalists is set to come out in June 2023.