A headline from Sabah newspaper dated Oct. 10 brought an important issue to the public eye. According to the article, one of the biggest media organizations in Turkey, the Doğan Media Group, and its owner, Aydın Doğan, sued many journalists who wrote critical articles about them and pursued either compensation or jail time depending on the journalist.The article that Daily Sabah also featured on the same day points to a very dire problem that threatens media freedom in Turkey. It appears that threatening journalists through the judiciary has become a tradition for some time now. When people find out there is an unfavorable article about them, their next stop becomes the courtroom without even determining whether or not there is a factual error, defamation or slander in the article. Throughout 2014, there were over 1,000 lawsuits opened by Gülenists against the Turkuvaz Media Group, with 271 of them opened by Fetullah Gülen himself. In total, over TL 6 trillion ($2.06 trillion) was demanded in damages.From our readers who do not live in Turkey, I anticipate two types of reaction to this situation. The first would be thinking what could be more natural then individuals pursuing their right to legal remedies, and the second would probably be that even though it is their right, suing journalists to this magnitude sounds a bit fishy. Both reactions are right. As a third reaction, our readers might wonder about the end result of these lawsuits. Let me explain. As important as these lawsuits' results are, there is another factor that is equally, if not more, important: The process of these lawsuits itself. When a journalist faces a lawsuit, they are compelled to show up in the courtroom a couple of times at least and deal with legal problems. This results in exhaustion and inevitably they lose heart.Beyond all this, the actions of the Doğan Media Group reek of inconsistency and hypocrisy. Up until last year, Mr. Doğan made statements in his newspapers and television channels boasting that they were quite tolerant of their critics and never sued someone unless it was absolutely necessary. It appears that Doğan started to adopt a policy completely opposite from his past statements. This policy change also shows the fundamental inconsistency of Doğan, who always tried to portray himself as the unyielding defender of freedom of the media while complaining about intolerance to criticism.Doğan also announces every investigation and case as attacks on the freedom of the media in Turkey and the world regardless of its relation to media and journalism while suing many journalists himself. And this is another one of Doğan's contradictions. This shows that Doğan is not sincere about freedoms and rights and instead acts out of his own interests while using important notions such as freedom of the media.A long list of casesLet's have a small look at the people the Doğan Media Group has filed lawsuits against and the contents of the lawsuits:Mustafa Dolu from Güneş newspaper faces 16 years in prison in two lawsuits filed by Mr. Doğan for articles in April and July 2015.Hasan Karakaya, a columnist for Yeni Akit newspaper, faces charges of insulting Mr. Doğan in two columns. A lawsuit asks for his imprisonment for up to two-and-a-half years. In another lawsuit concerning a column critical of Mr. Doğan, Karakaya faces a prison term of up to six-and-a-half years.Ali Karahasanoğlu, a columnist for Yeni Akit, faces a prison term of nine years for two cases from Mr. Doğan and Ahmet Hakan Coşkun.Two-and-a-half-years in prison is asked for Hacı Yakışıklı from Yeni Akit in a lawsuit from Coşkun.The Turkuvaz Media Group faces more than 20 lawsuits by Mr. Doğan that were filed last year and this year. The company and its staff are the targets of lawsuits asking for millions of lira in compensation. Some lawsuits have been rejected by the courts while others are still proceeding.Türkmedya, which owns the Akşam and Güneş newspapers, is another media group targeted by Mr. Doğan. In recent months, 11 lawsuits were filed against Akşam and Güneş, including nine compensation lawsuits and two lawsuits asking for prison terms. Yeni Akit, another newspaper critical of Mr. Doğan, faces lawsuits from him, with seven lawsuits in less than two months.Hilal Kaplan, a columnist for Daily Sabah and Sabah, was sued by Hürriyet for two tweets. Hürriyet asks for TL 15,000 in compensation from Kaplan for tweets she denies contain any insult or threat.Saddening silenceDemanding reparations for social media messages and jail time for articles and columns are stains on Turkey's media history. It appears that Mr. Doğan and his media group want to scare and prevent journalists from doing their jobs by threatening them with lawsuits. This mentality and these actions are a blow aimed at freedom of the media. It disregards freedom of speech and tries to make those freedoms redundant.As the demands in the lawsuits are not limited to damages and corrections, but also ask for imprisonment, the levels of both the threat and intolerance can be seen.Also seeing how journalism organizations, nongovernmental organizations and press councils remain silent in the face of these events is even more saddening. Some of them turn a blind eye to this injustice for political reasons while others such as the Press Council do not release statements on these events, as they are under the control of the Doğan Media Group.Unfortunately, the same goes for foreign journalists who write about Turkey. Our foreign journalist friends express their interest in every subject pertaining to freedom of the media in Turkey and write critical articles on the issue, yet they never put the above issues on their agenda. International media organizations either decide to act like the three monkeys or stall when our colleagues from Daily Sabah call for their remarks. This is indeed a bad mark on their report cards. The same can be said for foreign mission chiefs who share their remarks on nearly every development in Turkey. I cannot help but wonder if British Consul-General in Istanbul Leigh Turner considers mentioning this issue on his blog.