30 Jul 2016 | mobile, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
“Freedoms suspended” was the headline of Friday’s Cumhuriyet daily. It is one of the very few newspapers left in Turkey which dares to continue with critical reporting and analysis.
Cumhuriyet explained that the emergency rule decrees give the government the ability to arbitrarily shut down media outlets suspected of “having links to structures and groups that pose a threat to national security.” Ministers are now empowered to close TV, radio, websites and, even, book publishers. Prosecutors are required to follow those orders. This means a total end of media freedom in Turkey.
Academics, who had launched a petition calling for an end to the violence in south-eastern Turkey and advocated a return to peace negotiations, have found themselves targets of the wider with hunt, Cumhuriyet reported. Under government decrees, prosecutors are now able to issue search warrants and even seize the properties of suspects being arrested or sought for detention — without the need to have a judge approve the order.
Emergency rule has delivered at least one absurdity. An IVF clinic in Istanbul run by an Armenian doctor was forced to close for being “part of FETO terror organisation”. The doctor fiercely denied the claims, to no avail. “I am a Christian, have absolutely nothing to with Gülen” he told the press. Under the circumstances he has no possibility of appeal.
But the reality of emergency rule was plain to see on Friday as journalists were paraded in front of the cameras, hauled into interrogations. Four prosecutors questioned 21 media professionals — whether investigative reporters like Arda Akın or veteran columnists likeNazlı Ilıcak — accused of being part of the “media leg of terrorist organisation”.
The cases of two detainees — Prof Şahin Alpay, a political scientist and commentator, and Hilmi Yavuz, one of the top figures of Turkish literature — raised concerns to new levels. Both intellectuals need medication, which they were denied, according to their relatives and lawyers.
“A medical report was asked for from the doctors”, explained those close to the poet and literary critique, Hilmi Yavuz. “When we told them he already had prescriptions, we were prevented from handing the medication to him.”
Alpay’s relatives went on Friday morning to the public prosecutor’s office and presented his health reports, demanding a swift interrogation process. Their application was denied. Then, they went to the police headquarters, asking for information about his health. According to a news piece by P24 website, they were told that under no circumstances any explanation would be given. They were taken out of the building.
Turkish and international literature and academic circles must strongly protest these two most sensitive, absurd cases. Yavuz, with his six-decade career, is a “grand old man” of Turkish letters. Alpay has been one of the most consistent and powerful socially liberal voices in Turkey’s academic community. Everyone knows where both of these men stand for freedom and human rights. We owe it to them to raise our collective voices in their defense. But sadder still, neither the Turkish or international arms of PEN — at the time of writing — have spoken out against these arrests.
With the witch hunt has come severe fear among Turkey’s intellectuals suggesting that a disagreement in ideas is a pretext for indifference. Under these conditions, the dissenting and bold journalists, professors and, even, poets are doomed to receive blow after blow.
Silence, in these extraordinary times, is the enemy of democracy.
A version of this article originally appeared at Suddeutsche Zeittung. It is reposted here with the permission of the author.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
29 Jul 2016 | mobile, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
Arda Akin (Hürriyet)
The latest journalist arrested in Turkey is Arda Akın, a young reporter with the Hürriyet daily, part of the “mainstream” Doğan Media Group. Arda was in the “first” arrest list, issued on Monday, which mainly consisted of investigative reporters. In May, he was among those who won the European Union Investigative Journalism Award 2016, a prestigious prize delivered every year in six Balkan countries and Turkey. In his award-winning article, Akın told of corruption related to ruling Justice and Development Party figures.
Akın now joins 40 journalists taken into custody since the night of the bloody 15 July coup attempt. The arrests, in particular well-known veteran journalists such as Nazlı Ilıcak and Prof Şahin Alpay, adds to the profound concerns for press freedom in Turkey, where emergency rule gives the authorities power to extend arrest periods up to 30 days.
Former Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who has known Alpay for many years, tweeted on Wednesday:
Meanwhile, a series of sanctions launched by the government ratchets up the worries to new levels. In an emergency decree, a large number of media outlets were shut down; their assets are to be expropriated by the government.
It’s a long list, encompassing 45 newspapers, 16 TV channels, 15 radio stations, three news agencies, 15 periodicals and 29 publishing houses. Some of these outlets were raided and allowed to continue under a trusteeship regime, but it seems apparent that they will be discontinued, with a large number of journalists joining the unemployed. In this context, we are witnessing the ruin of the Turkish media. Emergency rule means massive self-censorship within the existing conglomerate media with a block on critical reporting.
The mass closure targets those outlets allegedly affiliated with the Gülenists. But two questions arise immediately …
Why does the government not completely focus on the culprits who were part of the coup attempt and instead give priority to targeting journalists? We all know that, as long as it is not preaching violence or becoming part of it, journalism is not a crime. If there are journalists who are actively involved in plotting and execution of a coup — a very serious crime — they should, of course, be put on trial. Silencing a large bulk of the media simply places a frosted glass on this aspect, awakening fears that the other segments of the media — for example the Kurdish press — could be next.
Second, with less room for reporting and analysis, it will be more and more difficult to inform the public about the truth behind the coup attempt and the delicate situation Turkey is in. As expected, everything is now open to disinformation and the manipulation of facts.
In general terms, the decree curbing the media, as well as dismissing almost half of the top military brass, has very restrictive aspects. It is about the enhanced authority given to judges and prosecutors. It gives them powers to execute searches in houses and offices. The most serious part is that even defence lawyers’ offices will not be immune from raids and searches. For wiretapping, a ruling from the judge will not be necessary; it will all be up to the jurisdiction of the prosecutors.
With the decrees coming in, Turkey now enters an even more precarious period. Much will depend on whether or not the democratically elected opposition will act in unison, and manage to push for a return to normalisation. Tough times are ahead.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
29 Jul 2016 | Bosnia, Europe and Central Asia, Macedonia, Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features, Poland, Turkey, United Kingdom
Click on the dots for more information on the incidents.
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
Turkey: Warrants issued for arrest of 89 journalists
Turkish authorities have issued two lists of journalists to be arrested since the 15 July failed military coup attempt in the country. Firstly, on 25 July, authorities issued the names of 42 journalists as part of an inquiry into the coup attempt. Well-known commentator and former parliamentarian Nazli Ilicak was among those for whom a warrant was issued, as was Ercan Gun, the head of news department at Fox TV in Turkey.
Two days later, 27 July, authorities issued warrants for the detention of 47 former executives or senior journalists of the newspaper Zaman. The arrests were part of a large-scale crackdown on suspected supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of masterminding the failed coup. The authorities shut down Zaman in March. At least one journalist, former Zaman columnist Şahin Alpay, was detained at his home early on Wednesday.
26 July, 2016 – Media Print Macedonia, the publisher of several daily and weekly newspapers, announced that it would dismiss 20 staff members, mostly experienced journalists and former editors from the daily Vest.
Layoffs are also to include employees from daily Utrinski Vesnik, Dnevnik, Makedonski Sport and weekly magazine Tea Moderna.
MPM stated layoffs were prompted by bad results and that the decision on who to dismiss would be based on the company’s internal procedures. Employees who lose heir jobs are to be compensated from one up to five average salaries, TV Nova reported.
24 July, 2016 – Emir Talirevic, a doctor who owns Moja Klinika, a private healthcare institution in Sarajevo, used Facebook to insult Selma Ucanbarlic, a journalist for the Centre for Investigative Journalism, following her articles about Moja Klinika, regional TV outlet N1 reported.
On 24 July Talirevic wrote on Facebook, among other things, that “judging by her psycho-physical attributes [the journalist] should never be allowed to do more complex work than grilling a barbecue”. He alleged hers were “imbecilic findings”, adding that “her work requires higher IQ than 65”.
In a second post, published on 27 July, Talirevic wrote that “as the toilet tank is taking away my associations on Selma and her CIN(ical) website I am thinking about the oldest profession in the world – prostitution”. He also wrote: “CIN is financed by gifts, like prostitutes”, and “after today’s article at least we know for whom Selma Ucanbarlic and her CIN colleagues are spreading their legs”.
22 July, 2016 – Masza Makarowa, a former journalist for the Russian language division of national broadcaster Polskie Radio, left the station due to a repressive climate and censorship, she claimed on her Facebook page.
An “atmosphere of scare tactics and paranoia” was prevalent at the broadcaster, Makarowa said. She also claimed that the station management instructed staff on which sources to consider for publication to Russian-speaking audiences, approving right-leaning, pro-governmental websites while explicitly prohibiting liberal sources like Gazeta Wyborcza for being opinionated. Certain updates, furthermore, were removed from the website.
22 June, 2016 – Jeff Howell, who had been writing a home maintenance advice column for The Telegraph for 17 years, was allegedly dismissed and removed from the Telegraph website after comments he made to his property section editor, Anna White.
According to Private Eye, the column, which was initially published both on the website and online, was removed from the website after he made a joke to property section editor White about correcting the Telegraph’s editing errors following a typo in January. Much of the column’s online archive was deleted following the incident.
Howell’s page on the Telegraph website used to get up to 10,000 hits daily but the removal of most of his columns from the website “made it easy to justify his dismissal by saying he didn’t produce any online traffic”.
29 Jul 2016 | Academic Freedom, Campaigns -- Featured, Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey
People gather in solidarity with the press outside Zaman newspaper in Istanbul in March 2016
By Ianka Bhatia and Sean Vannata
The spotlight has been on Turkey following the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the government’s ensuing crackdown on journalists, teachers, judges and soldiers. How did it come to this? Here are five key articles on Turkey from Index on Censorship showing the escalation of threats to freedom of expression prior to July’s failed coup.
1. Silence on campus
Early in 2015, an academic at Ankara University’s political sciences department spent an evening writing questions for an exam. He never for one minute suspected that one of those questions might lead to death threats. Index’s Turkey editor Kaya Genç reported on the struggle for academic freedom in Turkey’s election year for the summer 2015 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
2. “Judicial coup” sends clear warning to Turkey’s remaining independent journalists
“Nothing could illustrate the course of developments in Turkey better than the case of prosecutor Murat Aydın,” Yavuz Baydar wrote for Index on 8 June 2016. “In what was described as a ‘judicial coup’ in critical media, Aydin was one of 3,746 judges and prosecutors, who were reassigned in recent days, an unprecedented move that has shaken the basis of the justice system. Some were demoted by being sent into internal “exile”, some were promoted.”
3. Turkey war on journalists rages on
The ongoing deterioration in Turkey’s press freedom has been well documented by Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project since its launch in 2014. Back in March 2015, Index’s assistant online editor Ryan McChrystal looked at how, with journalists being killed, detained and prevented from working, the crackdown on Turkey’s media only appears to be getting worse.
4. Interviews with Turkey’s struggling investigative reporters
Kaya Genç interviews writers from the acclaimed independent newspaper Radikal about its closure and the shape of Turkish investigative journalism today for the summer 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
5. Turkey’s film festivals face a narrowing space for expression
The Siyah Bant initiative, which carries out research on censorship of the arts in Turkey, has given much coverage to obstacles to freedom of expression in the cinematic field in research published in recent years. In June 2016, Index published a report on cases of censorship at Turkish film festivals.
