28 Feb 2018 | Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Recent developments in Turkey, once seen as a role model for the Muslim world, have shown that concepts such as the rule of law and right to free speech are no longer welcome by the Erdogan government.
With 156 journalists behind bars as of 26 February 2018 and the closing down of more than 150 media outlets by virtue of the state’s of emergency decrees, Turkey is the global leader in suppressing the media. The irony is that Erdogan was once a victim of an earlier oppressive regime in the late 1990s, having been dismissed as mayor of Istanbul, banned from political office and put in prison for three months for inciting religious hatred after he recited part of a poem by the Turkish nationalist Ziya Gokalp at a political rally.
The destruction of the rule of law in Turkey has been in the making since the anti-government Gezi Park protests and corruption probes of 2013. However, the government has made its intentions on the right to free speech crystal clear in the aftermath of the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. Many journalists and writers have been imprisoned over accusations as absurd as spreading subliminal messages to promote the coup.
Some of them — like Die Welt journalist Deniz Yucel — have languished in detention without charge for a year. Yucel was used as a bargaining chip against Germany and was only freed after chancellor Angela Merkel put pressure on the Turkish government. Immediately after he was let out of detention he published a video message in which he said: “I still don’t know why I was arrested and why I have been released.”
Ahmet Sik, another well-known journalist, was imprisoned because of his thorough investigations into the dark sides of the coup attempt. Can Dundar was arrested for publishing about Turkish intelligence’s illegal arms transfers to Syria. He was kept in prison for several months and eventually released on a constitutional court decision in February 2016. He fled the country and currently lives in Germany. Veteran journalists Sahin Alpay and Mehmet Altan, on the other hand, were not so lucky. They had been granted freedom by the constitutional court but a local court refused to implement their release. Recently, the Altan brothers, Mehmet and Ahmed, and another senior journalist, Nazli Ilicak, have been brutally sentenced to aggravated life prison sentences. Examples of the obscene unlawful imprisonment of journalists can go on and on.
The heart of the issue is that Turkish journalists do excellent work. They go to extraordinary efforts to make sure the public is informed about corruption, illegal arms transfers, extrajudicial killings of Kurds and minorities, shady affairs of the ruling party with the judiciary and unanswered questions about the coup attempt. The government doesn’t want to see these issues make headlines, and for defying it many journalists have sacrificed their freedom.
Behind the thin veneer of Turley’s judicial system is the political machine manufacturing countless crimes. After 500 days pretrial detention, Ahmet Turan Alkan, an intellectual and a respected writer, pointed that out by telling a judge: “Your honour, I know you can’t release me because if you decide to do so you will be jailed.”
Turkey’s journalists are faced with a unique problem: if they continue to lay bare the truth for all to see they risk exile or prison. In a normal country, journalists performing at the height of their abilities would be encouraged or rewarded, perhaps not by their governments but by the society as a whole. But not so in Turkey, where the government mouthpieces and politically-aligned media outlets spout the latest propaganda to manipulate Turks. Unfortunately, the majority of people actually believe that most of the arrested journalists are criminals or terror supporters.
This collective hostility to freedom of expression makes Turkey one of the biggest violators of press freedom in the 42 European-area countries Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project monitors; one of the lowest ranking countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index; and deemed “not free” by Freedom House’s evaluation.
It’s not just journalists. Academics, rights defenders, philanthropists and lawyers also face punishment for carrying out their professional responsibilities on behalf of the public. Disclosing the unlawful practices of those in power is all it takes for an individual to find themselves on the wrong side of the bars. As with Alpay and Altan, a court had ordered Taner Kilic, the chairman of Amnesty Turkey, to be released from detention, but the prosecutor put him back in prison. Kilic and his colleagues are being targeted in retribution for Amnesty International’s work to make the world aware of the inhumane conditions in Turkey’s post-coup attempt era.
The government’s intolerance toward dissenting voices can also be seen in its treatment of university professors, students and others who signed an Academics for Peace petition, which called for an end to violence in the Kurdish region of the country. Hundreds of distinguished academics have found themselves summoned to courtrooms. For taking a stand about the ongoing tragedy in Kurdish cities, the majority of these academics are dehumanised and defamed. They have not only become enemies of the state but enemies of all Turks.
Yes, the government has terrorised ordinary people with the narrative of the “world against great Turkey” and urged them to stand against outspoken figures who are the “spies, traitors and enemies”.
What do the EU and other international organisations do? Mostly expressing their “concern” in different formats such as “great”, “deep” or “serious”. Even the European Court of the Human Rights has not issued a single verdict against Turkey’s post-coup purge which has seen the country become the world’s largest jailer of journalists.
On the same day the Altan brothers were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison, Tjorbon Jaglan, the secretary general of the Council of Europe was on a two-day visit in Turkey. He didn’t utter a single word about their situation. What else could better fit the definition of the “banality of evil” conceptualised by Hannah Arendt?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1519832159496-f7b69135-ce98-10″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 Dec 2017 | Belgium, France, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81193″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Commercial pressures on the media? Anti-establishment critics have a ready-made answer: of course, journalists are hostage to the whims of corporate owners, advertisers and sponsors. Of course, they cannot independently cover issues which these powers consider “inconvenient”. Actually such suspicion is widely shared: In France, according to the 2017 La Croix barometer on media credibility, 58% of public opinion consider that journalists “are not really able to resist pressures from financial interests”.
The issue is not new. In 1944 when he founded the French “newspaper of record”, Le Monde, Hubert Beuve-Méry fought to guarantee its independence from political parties but also from what he called “the wall of money”. “Freedom of the press belongs to the one who owns one”, New Yorker media critic A.J. Liebling famously said. However, “while media academics have long looked at the question of commercial pressure, ownership (…) in shaping coverage”, writes Anya Schiffrin in a 2017 CIMA report on “captured media” press freedom groups’ focus had been mostly on the governments’ responsibilities and on criminal non-state actors.
In June 2016 Reporters Without Boarders made a splash with its report on oligarchs in the media. Proprietors’ interventions may have indeed a very negative impact on journalism’s proclaimed commitment to report the news without fear or favour. Pressures are particularly acute when the media are owned by conglomerates who dabble in other economic sectors. In France, for instance, a military aircraft manufacturer (Dassault), the luxury industry leader (LVMH), telecoms giants (SFR, Free), a powerful public works and telecoms company (Bouygues) directly own key media companies.
Ownership provides a powerful lever to influence media contents. Cases of direct intervention or of journalists’ self-censorship are not exceptional, even if they are often difficult to prove. In France, Vincent Bolloré, owner, among others, of TV channel Canal+, has been regularly accused of using his powers to determine content. It led the French Senate’s culture commission to invite him to a hearing in June 2016, but he firmly denied all allegations of censorship.
In other European countries, the landscape is much clearer. In Turkey, during the June 2013 Gezi Park events, major TV stations failed to report police repression live. They chose instead to broadcast animal documentaries, for which they were rewarded with the nickname of “penguin media”. In fact, they turned into “proxy censors” for Erdogan’s government who had the power to determine their economic fate by rewarding them -or not- with public works contracts or financial favors. The worst of the worst flourishes in some former communist eastern European countries where major media outlets have been snatched by oligarchs allied with political parties or even, allegedly, with criminal organisations.
Big companies may be ruthless. Advertising budgets can be cut when a media covers “inconvenient news”. In November 2017, according to satirical weekly Le Canard enchainé, Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH (luxury products, owner of Le Parisien and Les Echos), canceled his advertising budget in Le Monde until the end of the year after his name appeared in the Paradise Papers global investigation, which named people who had offshore accounts in tax havens. LVMH denied it was cutting all advertising in the paper, adding that it was currently “reflecting on its advertisement policy in classical media”.
The unraveling of the legacy media’s business model has increased their vulnerability to outside pressures. Advertising money is shrinking, therefore increasing the temptation to dismantle what was presented as an impassable wall between “church and state”. Differences between advertising and the news are also being diluted into ambiguous advertorials, sponsored content and “native advertising”.
Such pressures however are not automatic. “Suffering pressures does not mean ceding to them”, says Hervé Béroud, director general of leading all-news TV channel BFMTV. Due to the way journalism actually works, the freedom to report, even against the owners’ interests, cannot be systematically crushed. In fact, as a former editor in chief of Belgian newspapers and magazines I was confronted with radically different forms of “advice” from my successive owners. While some were very protective of editorial independence others were blunter and ready to compromise with advertisers’ “wishes”. The existence of journalists’ societies, co-owners of the so-called “ethical capital” of the paper, provided some protection, but much was left to individual wrestling between the editor and the proprietor.
At the end, this issue comes down to defining who “owns freedom of information”. In 1993 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that “the owner of the right is the citizen, who also has the related right to demand that the information supplied by journalists be conveyed truthfully, in the case of news, and honestly, in the case of opinions, without outside interference by either the public authorities or the private sector”. A far cry from A.J. Liebling’s sentence…[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Survey: How free is our press?” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fsurvey-free-press%2F|title:Take%20our%20survey||”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-pencil-square-o” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
This survey aims to take a snapshot of how financial pressures are affecting news reporting. The openMedia project will use this information to analyse how money shapes what gets reported – and what doesn’t – and to advocate for better protections and freedoms for journalists who have important stories to tell.
More information[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner 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) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1513691969537-ee852610-8cb0-8″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
6 Dec 2017 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 46.04 Winter 2017
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Ariel Dorfman, Robert McCrum, Micah White and Anuradha Roy, as well as interviews with Richard Ratcliffe, Emmanuel Laurentin, Floyd Abrams and Buscarita Roa”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
In homage to the 50th anniversary of 1968, the year the world took to the streets, the winter issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at all aspects related to protest.
We explore the most noteworthy and effective protests of the past, as journalist and author Robert McCrum returns to Prague; we cast light on the most interesting and effective protests now, from India and South Korea through to South Africa and Hungary, via Argentina and its protesting grandmothers; we look at why protest still matters, including an interview with Richard Ratcliffe, husband of imprisoned mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe; and finally we look to the future of protest in an article from Occupy co-founder Micah White.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”96747″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
In some of pieces we see how the spirit of ’68 directly lives on. In France, for example, leading journalist historian Emmanuel Laurentin tells Sally Gimson that the young people protesting in ‘68 have been very influential in France since, and that the country holds its revolutionary past dear.
But it’s not all positive. We reveal new research that shows an increase in threats against journalists covering protests, as well as looking at how cities across England are selling off land to private owners and in so doing compromising our basic democratic rights. Articles from Turkey, Egypt and Latin America highlight the increasing dangers attached to going out into the streets and who is still taking the risk.
Outside the special report, the lawyer who represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers talks about the constitutional crisis affecting the USA today. And on a different note, we look at how musicians are being silenced in Catalan, whilst elsewhere people are being made to sing, the national anthem in this instance.
Finally, do not miss our exclusive short story from award-winning writer Ariel Dorfman. It features Shakespeare, Cervantes and spies, the perfect trio for a work of fiction.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special report: What price protest?”][vc_column_text]
Toxic environment, by Kaya Genç: Five years after Gezi Park, people in Turkey have given up on public space and retreated online
Is protesting pointless? by Micah White: One of the co-founders of Occupy proposes a novel way for protest to remain relevant
Square bashing, by Sally Gimson: English cities are giving away basic democratic rights when they sell off management of central streets, our report shows
Demonstration by design, by Danyaal Yasin: Banners are so 1968 as these new protests show the 2017 look is extremely creative
Stripsearch, by Martin Rowson: The world’s dictators have taken to the streets. What do they really, really want?
Meeting the oldest protesters in town, by Lucia He: An interview with one of Argentina’s famous grandmothers about decades of campaigning
Under a cloud, by Duncan Tucker: Tear gas, violence and new laws are all being used to frighten Latin American protesters into giving up
Green light from the Blue House? by Steven Borowiec: He came to power arguing he could protect protest, but is South Korea’s new president doing what he promised?
Return to the streets, by Raymond Joseph: Anti-apartheid demonstrators thought they had hung up their placards, but now they are back on protests
China’s middle class rebellion, by Robert Foyle Hunwick: There are cracks in the Chinese dream, and now the middle class is getting angry
“I see you”, by Rachael Jolley: The husband of imprisoned mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe talks to Index about why protest matters
Having the last laugh, by Csabi Tasi and Jemimah Steinfeld: Meet the party injecting humour into Hungarian politics and challenging the status quo
1968 and all that, by Sally Gimson: One of France’s leading journalistic historians discusses the new style of French protest
Wrongs threatening our rights, by Raj Chadda: A lawyer advises on increasing conditions being imposed on protests by UK police
Women walk out, by Shilpa Phadke and Anuradha Roy: Tired of being harassed and treated as second class citizens, Indian women are taking to the streets
It’s Spring again, by Robert McCrum: Fifty years after the Prague Spring, the author and journalist visits to ask whether it is still remembered. Also Pavel Theiner reflects on 1968
Mapping attacks, by Ryan McChrystal: Index reveals new research showing a rise in the dangers journalists face covering protests in Europe
“There was no outrage”, by Wael Eskandar: An Egyptian journalist on witnessing the dangers – and death – of protest in his country
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Column”][vc_column_text]
Global view, by Jodie Ginsberg: We need to champion free speech for all or risk the far-right controlling the conversation
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”In focus”][vc_column_text]
They can’t stop the music, by Silvia Nortes and Dominic Hinde: Artistic freedom in the run-up to the referendums in Scotland and Catalonia are compared. Catalonia loses
Book fairs and their freedoms, by Dominic Hinde, Ola Larsmo, Tobias Voss and Jean-Paul Marthoz: Controversies at Frankfurt and Gothenburg book fairs are leading to arguments about the freedom to speak and appear at these events
First Amendment comes under fire, by Jan Fox: An interview with the lawyer who represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case on the constitutional crisis hitting the USA today
Making the cut, by Wana Udobang: One of Nollywood’s leading directors on what it’s like working in the second biggest film industry in the world
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]
Spying for Shakespeare: An interview by Rachael Jolley with playwright Ariel Dorfman and introduction to his new short story, Saving Will and Miguel, with themes of Shakespeare, Cervantes and spies. This story for Index from the award-winning writer has it all
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Column”][vc_column_text]
Index around the world, by Danyaal Yasin: We’ve live broadcast an event and become UK partner on Banned Books Week, just two recent Index highlights
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote”][vc_column_text]
Blurred lines, by Jemimah Steinfeld: National anthems are back in fashion. Why and where are people being forced to sing against their will?
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”What price protest?” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fwhat-price-protest%2F%20|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores the 50th anniversary of 1968, the year the world took to the streets, to look at all aspects related to protest.
With: Micah White, Robert McCrum, Ariel Dorfman, Anuradha Roy and more.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”96747″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/12/what-price-protest/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Nov 2017 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Osman Kavala. Credit: Anadolu Kültür
On 19 October, when police officers detained Osman Kavala, a left-wing Turkish human rights activist and businessman who funds a variety of cultural and civil society activities, I was set to catch a plane en route to Armenia to attend a conference. The news was extremely bothersome as I, having held a civil society job for two years, knew all too well what his detention entailed. As Andrew Finkel, an executive of the Independent Platform for Journalism (P24) commented, his detention and later arrest was “a chilling signal to those working in the civil society community”.
I never knew Kavala personally, but always respected him for allowing civil society organisations to use his centrally-located Cezayir Restaurant for events and gatherings, usually at a minimal charge. I tried not to think about what I understood to be a new low in Turkey’s recent descent into authoritarianism and had managed to completely forget about it by the time I had reached the beautiful mountain resort of Arghevan. Yet my fellow conference attendees were quick to remind me of what had happened at home earlier in the day. Several people greeted me saying they had heard the news; that they were extremely concerned about their friend Osman. “He has more friends in Armenia than he has in Turkey,” Armen Ohanyan, an Armenian writer, told me.
This, of course, owes to Kavala’s commitment to Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. He has been committed to improving the troubled relations between the two neighbours stemming from a number of factors, but mainly from Turkey’s unwillingness to recognise the Armenian Genocide. However, repairing ties was not the only area where Kavala worked. Anadolu Kültür, a foundation he established, has carried out many cultural projects including restoration of minority heritage. He has also been an active supporter of children’s, women’s and LGBT rights. The foundation was recently involved in a project for integrating Syrian refugees into Turkish society.
Dozens of articles from his friends followed his arrest and from them we learn that, unlike most of Turkey’s elite, this wealthy businessman not only talked about the most problematic affairs of his country but actively put time and effort into resolving them. He remained committed to pursuing that goal until it was too much for the government. Perhaps he was not a saint or some modern-day sage who devoted his life to others, but he was a good man; a “good citizen” as the son-in-law of a general, who was imprisoned in a past crackdown led by prosecutors who were part of the Fethullah Gülen network which today the Turkish government accuses of being behind the 2016 coup attempt, called him.
Ironically, Kavala was arrested two weeks after his detention by an Istanbul court on the basis of a prosecutor’s allegation that he was linked with the “parallel structure” FETÖ/PDY — or the Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation — the name Turkish authorities give to Gülen network.
The prosecution accuses Kavala of “attempting to overthrow the government” by supporting Turkey’s Gezi Park protests — massive peaceful anti-government demonstrations that took place in all provinces across the country four years ago. His arrest was not a surprise and president Erdogan called Kavala an “agent” and the “Soros of Turkey” in the few hours following his initial detention.
In a statement he made while in prison on 6 November 2017, Kavala said it was Erdogan’s statements that led to his arrest. “My arrest is part of the government’s attack on all opposition,” he told a visiting deputy.
The charges against him are bogus, as Sedat Ergin, the former editor-in-chief of the Hürriyet daily, explained at length in a column which was translated into English. On 9 November, prominent European diplomats and politicians, including Carl Bildt, Claus Offe and others, wrote to the Financial Times, of the ridiculousness of the charges against him.
Whether there will be an unexpected yet helpful twist in the course of his proceedings as was the case of the eight human rights defenders who were released conditionally have yet to be seen. However, his treatment so far clearly shows that darker times are ahead for civil society.
On 8 November the Checks and Balances Network (DDA), an umbrella network for more than 100 civil society organisations, made a timid statement denouncing reports labeling it as a supporter of foreign agents, following news stories in the pro-government media which stated that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded network is an arm of the CIA. Other civil society organisations that are involved in non-political activities are also extremely concerned.
What makes Kavala’s arrest so pervasive is that it sends the message that the government has not been satisfied by the level of the crackdown it has already imposed on civil society. A total of 1,125 associations and 41 foundations were shut down under cabinet decrees since the declaration of the post-coup attempt state of emergency. Civil society leaders, who might have spoken out on Kavala’s arrest or not, now understand that Erdoğan may resort to Putin-like measures, banning civil society activities entirely and labelling its representatives as “foreign agents”.
That fear echoed in the initial remarks of Kavala’s academic and activist wife Ayşe Buğra, who said in a statement she made after her husband’s arrest: ““With the arrest ruling we have not only lost Osman Kavala’s freedom but at the same time our hopes in democracy, peace and the rule of law.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1510241893657-0016a8b6-b819-2″ taxonomies=”7355″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
