15 Dec 2021 | Artistic Freedom, Events, Magazine, News and features, Turkey, Wales
Death threats targeting a playwright who has become the target of the Turkish government; self-censorship that messes with your thoughts and changes how a play is written – these were just two things that were discussed as part of the launch this week of the winter issue of Index on Censorship magazine, Playing With Fire: How theatre is resisting the oppressor. In this new issue, writers, playwrights and actors discuss how the world of theatre is facing and confronting censorship around the globe. As reflected in the magazine and at the event, which was held on Monday, the theatre world still has the strength to bring people together, despite censorship.
The launch event specifically focused on Turkey and featured a conversation between the playwright Meltem Arikan and the writer Kaya Genç. The conversation was led by Kate Maltby, critic, columnist, scholar and deputy chair of Index on Censorship’s Board of Trustees.
Arikan told the audience that her first experience of censorship dates back to 2004, when her novel Yeter Tenimi Acıtmayın (Stop Hurting my Flesh) was banned by the Committee to Protect Minors from Obscene Publications.
“I protested a lot and nobody joined me. Before my book was banned, people loved watching me on television. I was openly talking about women. Now I can see that censorship is a similar problem all around the world, not only in Turkey,” said the Turkish and Welsh author who was short-listed for the Freedom of Expression Award in 2014 by Index. Arikan’s play Mi Minor was accused by the Turkish authorities as provoking the Gezi Park protests in 2013. She says that after Mi Minor was performed, she received death and rape threats constantly: “If you are a woman they focus more on your gender.”
The production of Meltem Arikan’s Mi Minör play.
Censorship also restrains people’s ideas, almost like putting an ideological filter inside someone’s brain.
“Self-censorship affects the tone of your writing, including the adjectives you use. I started writing in English for Index, which gave me a great amount of liberty,” said Genç, a journalist who lives in Istanbul and is a contributing editor for the magazine.
Genç told everyone watching the event that Turkish theatre was flourishing when Mi Minör’s play came out, although most of the plays were about torture and Turkish prisons in the 1980s, instead of contemporary Turkey.
“It’s very important that people like Meltem speak out. I see forced exile in Turkey as a tragedy,” he continued.
In Arikan’s words, she had to give up on Turkey. Today, she feels at peace with that decision.
“In Wales I feel I found my home. I’m so happy here. When I came here, at first I tried to give up on writing, but I couldn’t. There is a difference of attitude in the United Kingdom.”
She said: “We need more courageous writers in theatre.”
Maltby, who has written a piece for this edition on Belarus Free Theatre, said that one thing that clearly comes to mind when she thinks about theatre and dissent is theatre’s power to bring people together
“It’s a unique moment where there are a bunch of people who have never met before, but are suddenly physically inhabiting the same space, even in the social media landscape,” she said.
Playing With Fire: How theatre is resisting the oppressor, is out next week. Click here for information on how to read it.
2 Dec 2021 | Events
How is Turkish theatre resisting censorship and oppression? Join Meltem Arikan, Kaya Genç, and Kate Maltby for a recital and Q&A.
Join us for the launch of the new Index on Censorship magazine, Playing with Fire: How theatre is resisting the oppressor. In this edition we are engaging with the writers, playwrights, and actors using the theatre to resist oppression and censorship.
With a particular focus on Turkey, this launch event looks closer at the potential of the theatre, the impact of censorship on culture and literature, and the risks of speaking out. The conversation will be facilitated by Kate Maltby, deputy chair of the Index on Censorship Board of Trustees.
About the speakers:
Kaya Genç is a contributing editor for Index on Censorship based in Istanbul. Kaya is a novelist and journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Paris Review and The London Review of Books among others. He has a PhD in English literature and his first novel, L’Avventura (Macera), was published in 2008. His latest book is The Lion and the Nightingale, which tells of his extraordinary quest to find the places and people in whom the contrasts of Turkey’s rich past meet.
Meltem Arikan is a Turkish/Welsh author. Arikan is known for her sharp critique of society and fearless and outspoken voice in her novels, plays, poems and articles. Arikan has written 11 books including nine novels and five plays. Her fourth novel Yeter Tenimi Acıtmayın (Stop Hurting My Flesh) was banned in early 2004 by the Committee to Protect Minors from Obscene Publications. The ban was eventually lifted and Arıkan was awarded with “Freedom of Thought and Speech Award 2004” by the Turkish Publishers’ Association. She has received several awards and was short-listed for the Freedom of Expression Award in 2014 by Index on Censorship for her play Mi Minör which the Turkish authorities claimed was a rehearsal for the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013. Their subsequent hate campaign, fuelled by state sponsored media, forced her to leave Turkey to start living in Wales. In 2019 Turkish courts accepted the so-called Gezi Indictment which seeks life sentences for 16 people including her.
Kate Maltby is the deputy chair of the Index on Censorship Board of Trustees. She is a critic, columnist, and scholar. She is currently working towards the completion of a PhD which examines the intellectual life of Elizabeth I, through the prism of her accomplished translations of Latin poetry, her own poems and recently attributed letters, and her representation as a learned queen by writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Monday 13 December, 13.00-14.00 GMT
Where: ONLINE
17 Jan 2020 | Global Journalist, media freedom featured, News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”“I try to live isolated to protect myself. “”][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Zubyede Sari
When she got her start in the news business in 2009, Turkish journalist Zübeyde Sari couldn’t have imagined her chosen profession would cause her to have to leave her homeland.
At that time, Turkey’s then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was making peace overtures to Kurdish separatists, the Arab Spring that triggered civil war in neighbouring Syria was still more than a year away, and Turkish journalists and opposition parties had significant latitude to criticise Erdogan and the ruling AKP party.
After graduating from university in the southern port town of Mersin, Sari later moved east to the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, about 60 miles (97km) from the Syrian border. There she became a correspondent for BBC Turkish and the pro-Kurdish IMC TV, eventually covering the Syrian civil war as well as Turkey’s conflict with the PKK, a Kurdish militia.
Yet Turkey was becoming a more restrictive place for journalists. Censorship increased after massive protests in 2013 in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Gezi Park. In 2016, a failed military coup against President Erdogan triggered a ferocious crackdown on dissidents. More than 150,000 civil servants, police officers and academics were fired from government jobs for suspected disloyalty, according to a tally from the website Turkeypurge.com. Over 300 journalists were arrested and 189 media outlets shut down. IMC TV was raided by police and shutdown mid-broadcast.
Sari survived the initial purges, but in late 2018 she was forced to flee to Germany. “I had to leave in just one night,” she says. “They put my face on all the front pages of the magazines, accusing me of being part of a broadcast television network connected to the Kurdish movement. The next day, I would have woken up with the police knocking at my front door.”
Soon after leaving, she published an article for the site SuperHaber.tv detailing collaboration between the ruling AKP party and Turkish security in the construction of hidden prisons for political dissidents. Now 36, she lives in Berlin, Germany and works for Özgürüz [We Are Free], an online Turkish news portal founded by the well-known exiled journalist Can Dündar.
Sari, who still fears threatened by the many pro-Erdogan Turkish immigrants in Germany, spoke with Global Journalist’s Arianna Suardi. Below, an edited version of their interview:
Global Journalist: Why exactly were you targeted?
Sari: It’s complicated, but I think the Turkish government chose to target me because I’m reporting the truth about the political situation in Turkey. I talk about corruption and the lack of freedom of expression, and of course Erdogan’s party doesn’t like it. I also have friends who are Kurdish and [minority] Alevis and that’s probably why I’ve been accused of being one of them.
GJ: How was it to leave in just one night?
Sari: I’m still under the impact of that feeling. You basically leave your life behind with a small suitcase. It was November 2018, in one night I packed all the things I could and in the early morning I went to the airport and I took the first plane to Berlin.
I feel I don’t belong in this place. Leaving your country is a problem, but settling down in another one isn’t easy either.
GJ: Is life in Germany different than you imagined?
Sari: I’m working for Özgürüz. I can do my profession and I’ve been supported by [press freedom group] Reporters Without Borders. But it’s still very difficult here, more than I imagined. That’s why I started getting therapy. One important aspect is that I don’t speak German. I’m basically restarting my life from the beginning.
GJ: When do you think it will be possible to go back to Turkey?
Sari: I’ve packed my luggage everyday hoping to go back, and I’m still doing it. The problem is the climate of freedom of expression – in Turkey it’s terrible. You need press cards from the government to be a journalist. The government has full control over press card distribution. All the media outlets in Turkey are controlled by Erdogan, and if you’re not part of them you’re considered a terrorist or a traitor.
GJ: Now that you’re in Germany, do you feel free to express yourself or do you still feel pressure?
Sari: No, I can’t express myself. No one has actually threatened me so far, but I just try to hide myself as a form of protection. Sometimes I have the feeling that [Turkish] people in Germany do not really understand what is happening in Turkey, and that is the reason why they sympathise with Erdogan.
I prefer ignoring them rather than get into trouble…I try to avoid every private and personal conversation because I’m scared. It’s not easy, but when, for example, I have to take a taxi, I don’t reveal my identity nor my views about politics. Just yesterday, I was in a taxi and I lied about my profession, I said I was an accountant because I didn’t feel safe. I lie all the time, and I try to live isolated to protect myself.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/6BIZ7b0m-08″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.”][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook). We’ll send you our weekly newsletter, our monthly events update and periodic updates about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share, sell or transfer your personal information to anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Global Journalist / Project Exile” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 Sep 2019 | Campaigns -- Featured, Media Freedom, Statements, Turkey Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Item 4: General Debate
42nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Joint Statement delivered by ARTICLE 19 on behalf of a group of civil society organisations
Delivered by Lucy Bye
Mr. President,
It is now over three years since the Turkish Government intensified its repressive crackdown against oppositional and dissenting voices in the country. This ongoing freedom of expression crisis demands the Council’s urgent attention.
Although the State of Emergency was lifted in July 2018, the sweeping emergency decrees that enabled the government to pursue its unprecedented crackdown against the media and civil society have now effectively been absorbed into the ordinary legal framework.
Since the 2016 coup attempt, at least 180 media outlets have been forcibly closed. Over 220,000 websites have been blocked. At least 132 journalists and media workers are behind bars, and hundreds more have been prosecuted as terrorists, solely for their journalistic work, in the absence of any credible or even individualised evidence.
The rule of law is being systematically dismantled. Trials are increasingly Kafkaesque as the executive’s grip on the judiciary has continued to tighten. Journalists Ahmet and Mehmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak were initially forced to defend themselves against charges that they sent ‘subliminal messages’ in support of the coup attempt. Civil society activists and media workers have faced prosecution simply for allegedly downloading the secure communications app ‘Bylock’. In recent months, the government has even sought to rewrite history, charging 16 leading civil society figures who participated in the peaceful 2013 Gezi Park protests with attempting to overthrow the government. Osman Kavala is in his 24th month of pre-trial detention, in a flagrant violation of his fair trial rights.
Last week, whilst the convictions of six of his Cumhuriyet colleagues were overturned, Ahmet Şik was served new, unfounded charges including propaganda for a terrorist group and “insulting the Turkish state” that may see him sentenced to 30 years in prison. This judicial harassment follows a violent attack against Şik by police on 20 August, during a protest in front of an Istanbul Court against the dismissal of three opposition mayors in three cities in the South East. No one has yet been held accountable.
We call on all States at this Council to use their voice and urge Turkey to change course, and take immediate steps to restore the rule of law, and end its assault on media freedom and civic space.
I thank you, Mr. President.
ARTICLE 19
Cartoonists Rights Network International
Committee to Protect Journalists
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Index on Censorship
OBC Transeuropa
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
PEN America
PEN International
Norwegian PEN
English PEN
Danish PEN
German PEN[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1568807394411-de70b9f5-94df-5″ taxonomies=”6534″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
