Çiğdem Toker

Çiğdem Toker (born 1965) is a Turkish investigative journalist. Her career as an economic reporter has notably included investigations of abuse of government contracts.

Biography Çiğdem Toker was born in 1965 in Diyarbakır, Turkey. After graduating from Ankara University, Law School, she became an investigative journalist.

Toker began her career in 1986, working for the culture section of the Anka News Agency. She then worked on dubbing films for the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation.

From 2013 to 2018, she was a columnist for the newspaper Cumhuriyet, In 2017, she wrote a series of articles revealing how the Turkish government removed regulations in order to give contracts for prison construction to companies close to the government.

Toker then wrote for the opposition newspaper Sözcü until 2022. She now reports for the online publication T24, which she had previously contributed to beginning in 2009. She had previously faced a 3 million lira fine for reporting on public sector contracts for Cumhuriyet. Toker has been sued by not only the government but also hospitals, agricultural firms, and mining companies.

In 2015, she was shortlisted for the European Press Prize for her work on uncovering mysterious expenditures under then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.

She has written or contributed to several books, including Abdüllatif Şener: Adım da Benimle Beraber Büyüdü (2008), a long interview with the politician Abdüllatif Şener; Türkiye'de Sağlıkta Kamu Özel Ortaklığı - Şehir Hastaneleri, compiled by Kayıhan Pala (2018); and the 2019 work Kamu ihalelerinde olağan işler, which builds on her reporting on government contracts.