The Comment Factory

Gizem is a video journalist who has reported for various international news networks. She has also produced documentaries centering on issues surrounding the Middle East. Most recently, Gizem worked as a freelance producer for Reuters TV and Al Jazeera English in New York City, covering the United Nations, Wall Street and local stories with an international angle. Gizem worked as an assistant producer for an international affairs news program that aired on CNNTurk in Istanbul, Turkey. She's currently working as an Associate Producer at an international news program in New York. She is fluent in Turkish and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

gizemyarbil@thecommentfactory.com
Subscribe To My Articles

Turkey has been rattled by the news this week that about 50 military commanders were detained for allegedly planning a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Islamic-leaning government.
The commanders are accused of “attempting to remove the government through force and violence” in a supposed plot codenamed “Sledgehammer.” Alleged tactics include planting bombs at mosques and [...]

This year, a documentary film that portrays the plight of these audacious undercover journalists is in the running for an Oscar as Best Documentary Feature. Burma VJ, directed by the Danish filmmaker Anders Ostergaard, tells the heroic story of Burma’s bold video journalists, armed with their battered handycams to report the uncensored truth from their country while risking torture and jail sentences

Critics argue that the word “Allah” predates Islam and Christians had been using the word for generations, long before the Muslims even existed. The word is Arabic and has been used by various cultures and societies where Arabic is the main language

The detention of human rights workers and elected officials for being part of an alleged “urban network” of an armed, militant group without any real proof except for speaking in parliaments and participating in film festivals, is an outright abuse of democracy and will undoubtedly stall the peace process in the region

When I was growing up, everything I heard from Diyarbakir involved death and tragedy. Turkish media has covered the conflict extensively through the years, but generally only from the Turkish military’s point of view. Visuals of crying mothers of dead soldiers, coffins and military funerals on the evening news often accompanied our family dinners. But I don’t remember ever seeing a crying Kurdish mother or anything about the other side of the story on the news. For many of us, Kurds were the enemy, the “Other” that existed to destroy the Turkish people and the nation

I think rather than going towards the East or West, Turkey is becoming more like itself. It is rediscovering its Ottoman past and coming to terms with its history and multiple identities. As long as Turkey remains democratic it will be Janus-faced, looking both to the Islamic world and Europe, just like the Ottoman Empire did for centuries

In that case, considering the already strained relations between the two “allied” nations, the question becomes, is the Turkish government interested in enlarging the rift between the two countries? And if so, what would this say about the future of the Middle East?

I think it’s a huge step forward to have a professional women’s football league in Turkey; after all, it has been established in so many European countries for many years. Girls playing football or lifting heavy weights are at the beginning of a long road to establish total equality for women and men in Turkey

The disgraceful attacks in Mumbia may have been committed by Muslims, but the targets of the violence would indicate there is a wider context that is not being explored yet.

Bill Maher’s latest movie, Religious, is a vainglorious and toothless attack on religion by an atheist who thinks he is actually God.