Hazar Dost

Founder

Hazar Dost began his journalism career at the independent online outlet Medyascope, in 2019. The next year, he received training on OSINT investigations at Turkey’s leading fact-checking organization Teyit.org, and contributed to researches conducted by Teyit.org afterwards.

After 2021, he turned his focus to security issues; as Turkey assumed a more central position in regional human-trafficking networks. Hazar Dost covered not only the personal stories of immigrants, but the logistics of those networks as well.

In the summer 2021, Dost was among the journalists who covered the streak of forest fires on the Mediterranean coast, and he was presented the Best TV News Story Award by Çağdaş Gazeteciler Derneği [The Progressive Journalists Association].

Professional experiences

Medyascope (Online news outlet) – 2019-2021
Teyit.org (Online fact-checking platform) – 2020-2021
Halk TV (TV station and online news outlet) – 2021-2023
T24 (Online news outlet) – 2023

By-lines

Al-Monitor

Research interests

Human trafficking, human trafficking routes through Turkey
Finance sources of non-state armed groups
Money trail of organized crime networks
Leak journalism and whistleblowers in the law enforcement agencies
Crisis reporting during natural disasters and their aftermaths (floods, earthquakes, forest fires, etc.)

Notable works and publications

Exposé: Hazar Dost investigates a person whose financial assets had been officially frozen following a UN Security Council resolution, and was in fact still serving as an instrument of financing Islamic State-related activities under a different company name, but at the same address with his former company in Istanbul (Appeared in Halk TV on Nov 11 2021)

Investigation: Following the arrest of high-level Islamic State officer Bashar Hattab Ghazal al-Sumaidai in Istanbul, Hazar Dost follows al-Sumaidai’s footsteps and tracks his movements since his first arrival to Istanbul. (Appeared in Halk TV on Sep 9 2022)

Exposé: Hazar Dost finds out, during Turkey’s Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu’s rally in Idlib-Syria, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants were providing security to Minister Soylu and his detail. (Appeared in Halk TV on May 11 2022)

Exposé: Following the suicides of two police officers who work under the same special forces unit in Sirnak, Hazar Dost reveals that numerous police officers had filed mobbing complaints about their superiors, after Alparslan Soylu (police officer) committed suicide. However, authorities did not carry out an investigation, and soon after a second police officer from the same unit (Murat Sucu) committed suicide as well. (Appeared in Halk TV August 9 2022)

Investigation: At the time of a steady influx of immigrants from Afghanistan to Turkey through mountain routes, Hazar Dost finds out human trafficking has already become a regular business in the eyes of the locals, and apparently authorities. Local car park owners show Dost, the impounds are full of vans that transport illegal immigrants from mountain routes to safer parts of Turkey. Dost reveals that despite the vans being impounded to lots, the owners or the drivers of those vans remained at large, enjoying impunity. (Appeared in Halk TV on Oct 28 2021)

Investigation: Hazar Dost reveals the expert opinions submitted to the Istanbul Municipality in 2007, regarding the metrobus vehicles to be bought then. The expert opinions underlined the inadequate capacity to provide technical assistance after the sale, of the bidder company Phileas, and strongly advised the Municipality to look for other options. (Appeared in Halk TV on Sep 15 2021)

Investigation: Hazar Dost investigates the day-to-day activities of human-trafficking routes which are used by thousands of people every day for entering Turkey from Iran. (Appeared in Halk TV on July 19 2021)