11 May 23 | FEATURED: Jemimah Steinfield, News and features, Turkey
The country’s human rights landscape has disintegrated since Erdogan took over in 2003
Turkish citizens are heading to the polls this Sunday to vote in the most fiercely contested election in years. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in 2003, is fighting for his political survival amid economic turmoil and wrath over the handling of the February earthquakes. He is being challenged by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a retired bureaucrat who is backed by a six-party National Alliance.
One month before the elections PEN Norway’s Turkey adviser travelled to Istanbul to interview 11 representatives of the major political parties (including Erdogan’s) and question them on issues surrounding free expression in Turkey.
The interviews, which they shared with Index, are a sobering look at how Turkey’s human rights landscape has disintegrated in that time (with the exception of Bülent Turan, from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, who goes as far as denying that any journalist is in prison because of their work). The testimonies are tied together by common threads – what attacks have happened and how they have happened (very much over time, not linked to just one single moment or one single piece of legislation). The rule of law comes up time and again. “There is no rule of law in Turkey anymore and the independence of the judiciary has been destroyed,” Dr. Canan Kaftancıoğlu, the Istanbul regional chair of the Republican People’s Party, says bluntly.
They are, unsurprisingly, most damning of Erdogan himself. The lawyer Bahadır Erdem, vice chair of the Iyi Party, one of the most important components of the National Alliance, says Turkey is being ruled by “a one-man regime” and this “system has pushed our country into dire straits”.
But the interviews also strike a note of optimism, a sense that all is not lost. Strong grassroots organisations still exist, as lawyer Züleyha Gülüm, MP for the People’s Democratic Party, points out. And these grassroots organisations, combined with an alliance that has come together around a commitment to improve rights, mean that Turkey’s fate could all change this weekend. Bülent Kaya, legal affairs chairman of the Saadet Party, said that if the National Alliance is successful “everyone will breathe a sigh of relief”. Erdem said: “Once we amend the constitution, an independent judiciary will follow. The press will be independent. We will fully implement the freedom of opinion of individuals. People will be completely free both in social media and as an author in the works they create and write, as an artist in the films they shoot, in the works of art they act in, in the works of art they create. This is the sine qua non of democracy. It’s as natural as breathing.”
Below we share one of the interviews in full, a powerful testimony from Zeynep Esmeray Özadikti, a trans woman who is candidate for MP from Turkey’s Worker Party. She outlines the immense struggles faced by those who are LGBTQI and by women.
03 May 23 | News and features, Turkey
In the weeks leading up to the election, young professionals lean on YouTube to gather varied and impartial news
Deniz starts his daily commute by opening the Youtube app to understand what’s happening in the country around him. Apart from a brief newsletter that provides the top headlines, the 25-year-old business analyst has taken to getting his news almost exclusively in video form. It’s easier to get the full story, Deniz, who preferred to use a pseudonym given the political climate, tells Index on Censorship. The young professional said that following journalists and information creators on YouTube he finds is the only way to get a “balanced view”.
Print journalism and social media presence has come under close watch after the government issued legislation last October that jails journalists and social media users for “spreading disinformation”. In the months since, one journalist, Mir Ali Kocer, was detained for his reporting on the February earthquake which struck southern Turkey and northern Syria.
Getting information in video format isn’t necessarily a new concept for Turks. In 2021, for example, Cuneyt Ozdemir, a Turkish journalist whose main platform is YouTube, aired interviews with major government officials before other mainstream media sites. But today more and more younger Turks are gravitating towards video-format news. The theory is it can present less bias as creators are separate from traditional news outlets.
Asli, a 23-year-old undergraduate student, said she is an avid Ozdemir watcher, being one of his 1.48M subscribers. She also watches Nevşin Mengü, an independent journalist who attracts 150 thousand people to her YouTube news hour every day. She hears about topics on TikTok, often featuring shorter video content than YouTube, and then turns to YouTube for a longer, more informative video essay.
Asli and Deniz’ video news habits are becoming common for young Turkish media consumers, who are growing tired of a media scene which, according to an independent newspaper BirGün, is 90% in line with the government, Popular broadcast CNN Turk and newspaper Hürriyet, for example, are owned by Turkish conglomerate Demirören Holdings, the largest media group, and are known for their pro-government line. The two often avoid government criticism altogether and publish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speeches in full. In broadcast videos with Erdogan, programmes give the president full rein, avoiding questions altogether and giving him the time slot to just speak.
In this environment it’s no surprise younger people are turning to alternative sources. According to MOM, or the Media Ownership Monitor Turkey, YouTube is the second most popular social media site in Turkey after Facebook. And according to DataReportal, there are 57.9M active YouTube users.
Damla, who is a recent graduate, told Index that she approaches traditional media with deep suspicion.
“There’s no in between,” the bachelor of economics student said. “The foreign media paints Turkey only in a developing light; the Turkish media says it’s their [western media’s] fault.” Damla said that while she reads Turkish media, anything that more directly questions the government, by Turkish speakers, tends to be in video format, something she thinks may be due to it being harder to monitor the video content versus traditional, written news, which can be more easily pruned and filtered.
Video platforms also feel like a “safer place” of sorts. Following the passage of the “disinformation” bill, many people, Deniz included, have questioned whether to favourite certain tweets and think twice before sharing on Instagram. While Deniz worries about actively sharing thoughts on platforms attached to his name, he said he felt safer commenting on YouTube where one wasn’t pressured to have a profile photo or build an online presence but could just be a viewer.
Where and how Turkish citizens are consuming their news matters as the 2023 presidential elections approach this May, heralded by many as the most important in the world this year.
Voters will head to the polls on 14 May, with Erdogan facing some of the greatest challenges he has seen in years. Polls are predicting a record voter turnout, as Erdogan faces his main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and presidential nominee for the six-party Nation Alliance bloc.
In an environment of fury over the earthquake, a serious economic crisis and the continued erosion of civil liberties, Kılıçdaroğlu is popular. He leads Erdogan in some polls. He is using the video platforms too. He has attracted wide viewership to his videos (many of which are on Alevis, a religious minority group, and the drastic price rise of onions). Erdogan’s AK Party has also taken to YouTube production over the past few months, creating specific videos for over 60 cities, but has significantly lower followership than other channels. The AK Party and Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP both have TikTok accounts, though once again they were struggling to achieve the hits that the non-partisan commentators in Turkey are getting.
None of this makes YouTube or TikTok immune from the government. They could ban access, as they did with Twitter in the earthquake aftermath.
Still, for now YouTube is proving invaluable as the elections approach.
“Days before casting my vote, I want access to all the information: governmental and what the government may deem misinformation,” Damla said.
17 Mar 23 | News and features, Turkey
When Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş province was hit by two powerful earthquakes on 6 February 2023, the government responded by attacking the country’s already beleaguered press and journalists. It is time now to take stock, lay bare abuses and ask the right questions.
Over 55,000 people died in the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey and thousands are still missing. In Turkey alone, there was a devastating effect on at least 10 provinces, wiping several cities off the map.
The harrowing aftermath of the earthquake was compounded by the government’s inadequacy in providing disaster relief. Beyond that came a series of measures to stop the media from reporting on the earthquake, ranging from detentions and intimidation to physical attacks.
In the time between the earthquakes hitting on 6 February and the first week of March, 10 journalists were taken into custody, with two of them arrested for their reports from the disaster ground. In addition to that, 26 journalists were targets of physical attacks or attempted attacks in the earthquake region, initiated by security forces and unidentified groups. A state agency gave three independent news stations astronomical fines, and journalists working in pro-government media have targeted at least three journalists for their work in the disaster region.
On 9 February, the day after the government declared a state of emergency in the affected regions, it blocked Twitter for up to 12 hours. This move didn’t only hinder the coordination of relief efforts, but also led to hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives being lost, as many earthquake victims were tweeting their status and asking for help from under the rubble in those most crucial hours.
Even for a government known for its repressive policies, why did shutting down social media and stopping the press take precedence over rescue efforts?
In Turkey, where the vast majority of media is in government hands and internet access restrictions are common, the earthquake laid bare the disastrous consequences of two decades of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Following the earthquakes, thousands of buildings collapsed, with yet thousands more severely damaged — believed by many construction experts to be a result of a series of amnesties which legalised unregistered developments, and the support for government-friendly construction companies.
The media exposed the links between the government and construction companies, which could easily obtain licenses for unfit buildings. This strictly contradicts the government’s narrative of the earthquake being the “disaster of the century”.
News reports on buildings — including that of the Kahramanmaraş Chamber of Civil Engineers, which survived the two quakes without so much as the glass of a window shattering — stood testimony to the fact that although the earthquakes were natural, the disaster was man-made.
Covering up these incidents by stopping journalism took precedence over saving lives.
The first earthquake-related detention occurred as early as 7 February, when Evrensel Daily’s Adana correspondent Volkan Pekal was taken into custody by police officers while filming at Adana City Hospital on charges of recording “without permission”.
By the third day after the earthquake, four journalists had been detained while filming or interviewing in the affected cities. Many journalists now face investigations under Turkey’s newest “fake news” law which makes “spreading misleading news publicly” a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
On 27 February, local journalists and brothers Ali İmat and İbrahim İmat from the earthquake-stricken town of Osmaniye were arrested on the same charge. They exposed how hundreds of tents in Osmaniye were kept in storage houses, instead of being distributed to survivors.
There were also threats. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told journalists the government was monitoring those who were critical of Turkey’s handling of the disaster. Turkey’s state broadcast monitoring agency, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), issued Halk TV, Tele 1 TV and Fox TV with five programme suspensions and administrative fines for their news reports on the disaster.
More than one month after the earthquake, many cities still don’t have running water; debris and rubble haven’t been cleared up in many places. Survivors still don’t have access to tents, let alone housing. With general elections due in two months, instead of addressing the needs of survivors and putting in place procedures to ensure that the next earthquake will not result in a similar outcome, the government of Turkey still chooses to demonise and punish independent journalism.
01 Dec 22 | Belarus, Campaigns, China, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Mexico, News and features, Nicaragua, North Korea, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia
At the end of every year, Index on Censorship launches a campaign to focus attention on human rights defenders, dissidents, artists and journalists who have been in the news headlines because their freedom of expression has been suppressed during the past twelve months. As well as this we focus on the authoritarian leaders who have been silencing their opponents.
Last year, we asked for your help in identifying 2021’s Tyrant of the Year and you responded in your thousands. The 2021 winner, way ahead of a crowded field, was Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, followed by China’s Xi Jinping and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad .
The polls are now open for the title of 2022 Tyrant of the Year and we are focusing on 12 leaders from around the globe who have done more during the past 12 months than other despots to win this dubious accolade.
Click on those in our rogues’ gallery below to find out why the Index on Censorship team believe each one should be named Tyrant of the Year and then click on the form at the bottom of those pages to cast your vote. The closing date is Monday 9 January 2023.
VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED. SEE WHO YOU VOTED AS TYRANT OF THE YEAR 2022 HERE.
