With more than 100 journalists arrested and 300 media outlets closed, Turkey has become, according to Reporters Without Borders, the largest prison in the world for journalists.

For this unprecedented investigation produced by Premières Lignes Télévision for the magazine Envoyé Spécial, journalist Laurent Richard decided to continue an investigation banned in Turkey and to ask the questions that Turkish journalists can no longer ask on the links between the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and armed Islamist factions in Syria.

In May 2015, the broadcast of images in Turkey showing members of the Turkish secret services transporting ammunition and weapons to Syria created an international outcry. Dozens of journalists, prosecutors and gendarmes who had dared to take an interest in the case were then thrown in prison. Why did the Turkish government want to suppress this story?
Who were these weapons intended for? Laurent Richard was able to question numerous direct witnesses such as the former deputy director of the Turkish secret services, currently ambassador in Paris, but also the Turkish president himself during an electric press conference at the Élysée.

An investigation that is more relevant than ever in view of the latest Turkish armed incursions into northern Syria, and while the regime of Bashar El Assad continues to shell its own besieged civilian populations in the Damascus region.

Documentary directed by Laurent Richard