Alwaght- While Turkish mainstream media are saturated by pro-government campaigning ahead of the vote on broadening President Tayyip Erdogan's powers, those opposed to the changes complains of threats and bans from the authorities.
A report by one non-governmental group says television coverage of the "yes" campaign had been ten times more extensive than that of the “No” supporters, Reuters reported.
Sunday's referendum will decide on the biggest change in Turkey's system of governance since the foundation of the modern republic almost a century ago, potentially replacing its parliamentary system with an executive presidency.
Erdogan and his supporters say the change is needed to give Turkey stronger leadership at a time of turbulence. Opponents fear increasingly authoritarian rule from a president they cast as a would-be sultan who brooks little dissent.
The vote is being held under a state of emergency imposed after a failed military coup nine months ago, meaning there are "substantive" limitations on freedom of expression and assembly, according to the Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts at the Council of Europe.
Turkey has purged more than 113,000 people from the police, judiciary, military and elsewhere since the coup attempt, and has closed more than 130 media outlets, raising concerns among Western allies about deteriorating rights and freedoms.
The leaders of the pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, parliament's third-largest party, have been jailed over alleged links to Kurdish militants along with a dozen of its MPs and thousands of its other members. The HDP opposes the constitutional changes.
"The extremely unfavourable environment for journalism and the increasingly impoverished and one-sided public debate that prevail in Turkey at this point question the very possibility of holding a meaningful, inclusive democratic referendum campaign," the Venice Commission said last month.
Turkish officials have said international observers are free to monitor all aspects of the referendum and have repeatedly rejected the notion that the media is muzzled, saying that outlets shut down in the purges were closed on terrorism-related charges, not for their journalism.
Erdogan was quoted in February as saying there was more press freedom in Turkey than in many Western countries.
