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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81952″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]While the scale of Turkey’s crackdown on freedom of expression in the post-coup-attempt emergency rule era has been intense, the assault on dissenting voices predated the failed putsch.
Whether it they were Kurdish writers at the turn of the decade, or worked for Feza Publications just months before the night elements of the military betrayed their fellow Turks, journalists that offered alternative viewpoints were long in president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crosshairs.
In the case of Feza’s popular publications — among them Zaman and the English-language Zaman Daily — which had been raided and its employees arrested on several occasions since 2014 as the shakey rule of law eroded in Turkey. In a March 2016 move that was condemned internationally, Feza Publications was targeted with the imposition of government-appointed trustees. This resulted in the termination of hundreds of media professionals from journalists to advertising reps and the literally overnight change from independent and critical outlets to government propaganda sheets.
An appeal on the takeover of Feza was made to the European Court of Human Rights to address a clear violation of the right to freedom of expression, among others. Yet the application was rejected on what was seen as questionable grounds, becoming one of the many disappointing decisions taken by the international court.
Takeover
The assault on Feza Publications was ordered by the Istanbul 6th Criminal Court of the Peace on Friday 4 March 2016. By nightfall, the police had raided the Zaman newspaper office, using tear gas and water cannons on the protestors outside. The Saturday edition of Zaman was the last version of a free newspaper. The front page headline declared “the constitution suspended” and noted that Turkish press had seen one of its “darkest days”. The Sunday edition, under new ownership, was a disconcerting contrast. The front page showed a smiling president Erdogan holding hands with an elderly woman, coupled with an announcement that was he hosting a Women’s Day event. The main headline was “Historic excitement about the bridge”, a reference to a span being built across the Bosphorus with state funding.
Newly appointed government trustees immediately interfered with editorial decisions. A staff member commented that: “Before the takeover, our deadline was 7:30pm. The trustees moved that deadline to 4:30pm, and in the remaining three hours they censored and changed the paper to fit their new ‘line’.” The new management had also banned staff access to the newspapers’ archives.
The police who had raided the office on the Friday, stayed on to check staff IDs and prevent groups of three or more from assembling. Hundreds of Feza Publications employees were then dismissed under Article 25 of the Turkish labour law which lays out that contracts can be annulled without prior notice if an employee displays “immoral, dishonourable or malicious conduct”. Those dismissed have recounted how they received a generic letter which gave no explanation the accusations.
Considered enemies of the state, former Feza Publications employees found it difficult to obtain new jobs. They were left to survive on little to no income; Article 25 outlines that those dismissed are not eligible for redundancy packages or other compensation And recruiters were right to be weary; four-and-a-half months after the takeover, the July 16th coup attempt occurred, and purges began on a massive scale. Thousands of journalists were dismissed, and dozens were detained on terrorism-related charges. Feza Publications, already marked as Gulen-linked and thus terrorist – without the presumption of innocence – during the takeover, was a prime target. Thirty-one Zaman employees are currently standing trial, with nine, including Şahin Alpay, facing life sentences. In January 2018, Turkey’s constitutional court ordered that Şahin Alpay, alongside journalist Mehmet Altan, be released from pre-trial detention.
After the lower courts refused to comply, the ECtHR ruled that their detention was unlawful and that they should each be compensated €21,500.
The other journalists, unable to garner the same international support, have remained in pre-trial detention. Zaman’s Ankara chief Mustafa Ünal, arrested purely because of his newspaper columns and facing the same circumstances as Alpay, has also applied to the ECtHR. But his application was rejected, and after almost two years behind bars he expresses in despair “my scream for justice has faded away in a bottomless pit”. He is not alone, with the ECtHR and international community doing little in light of the Feza Publications debacle and abolishment of the freedom of expression in Turkey.
Appeal to the ECtHR
The Feza Publications takeover and ensuing rights violations, on top of individual pleas for justice, has led to appeals for the entity itself. Two shareholders of Feza Gazetecİlİk A.Ş. (the Feza stock company) took the matter of government-appointed trustees to the Turkish constitutional court. When this appeal failed, they applied to the ECtHR regarding violations of: Article 10, right to freedom of expression; Protocol Article 1, right to property; Article 7 and 6.2, no punishment without law and presumption of innocence; and Article 8, respect for private and family life. Dated 29 July 2016, the application was rejected by ECtHR Judge Nebojsa Vucinic on 14 December 2017 with reference to the Köksal v. Turkey decision.
The decision is reference to a case surrounding Gökhan Köksal, a teacher and one of over 150,000 dismissed from their jobs after the coup attempt. The ECtHR had rejected his appeal on the basis that he must first apply to the Turkish State of Emergency Commission, i.e., first exhaust all domestic avenues. The Köksal decision was problematic. The State of Emergency Commission was established in January 2017 for appeals against dismissals and closures assumed under the state of emergency imposed since 20 July 2016. To date, the Commission has only approved 310 out of 10,010 finalised cases, a 3% success rate. There are almost 100,000 cases still under examination. Many consider the mechanism to be inefficient, and its impartiality questionable. It should not be considered a reliable domestic avenue. Reference to the State of Emergency Commission in relation to Feza Publications poses a further problem; the appointment of government trustees occurred four-and-a-half months before the state of emergency was implemented.
The ECtHR decision is completely inadequate. Although some Feza employees were dismissed under state of emergency decrees, other dismissals and violations pertaining to the Human Rights Convention commenced well before. Although all Feza media outlets (Zaman and Zaman Daily, the Cihan News Agency, Aksiyon magazine, and the Zaman Kitap publishing house) were closed via emergency decree in July 2016, Feza shareholders are not entitled to apply to the State of Emergency Commission. Only persons in charge of the legal entities or institutions at the time of closure – by that point, the government appointed trustees – have the right to apply. Such a situation is implausible, leaving the ECtHR as the only option. Besides, it has been shown that regardless, neither the State of Emergency Commission nor the Turkish judicial system should be considered viable domestic avenues to appeal rights violations.
This ECtHR decision, one in a long line of disappointing rulings for Turkish victims, is seriously flawed. The ECtHR must reconsider the Feza Publications application, alongside those such as Köksal v. Turkey which only pave the way for future rejections. Without adequate ECtHR rulings there is little hope for the upholding of human rights, such as freedom of expression, in Turkey.
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”100382″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Seda Taşkın had just been sent to Muş, a tiny eastern Turkish city on a fertile plain surrounded by high mountains, to report on a few stories when police started to track her down. Hot on the case, police apparently availed themselves of a time machine, arresting the Mezopotamya news agency reporter late in December half an hour before a prosecutor had even issued an arrest warrant in concert with an informant’s tipoff. Taşkın’s subsequent trial, however, suggests that rather than breaking new grounds in physics, Turkey’s authorities are probably just breaking the law.
Taşkın appeared in court for the first time on 30 April to face charges of “membership in a terrorist organisation” and “conducting propaganda for a terrorist organisation.” The court date, however, exposed serious irregularities regarding her arrest, the treatment she received in custody and the evidence against her. During the hearing at the 2nd High Criminal Court of Muş, Taşkın’s lawyer highlighted the email address used to tip off authorities to the journalist’s alleged crimes.
According to the official document in the case file seen by Mapping Media Freedom’s Turkey correspondent, the email address denouncing Taşkın as a “militant” bore an “egm” extension, signifying the Turkish abbreviation for “general department of police.” Gulan Çağın Kaleli told the court that a mere 20 minutes were required to locate Taşkın and arrest her – a period that’s even less than the time it took to issue a mandatory arrest warrant. Questioning whether the anti-terror unit had, in fact, fabricated the tipoff, Kaleli requested that the source of the email be identified according to its IP number, but the court ultimately rejected the demand.
“The police tipped her off and the state caught her. This was the mise-en-scène,” said Hakkı Boltan, the co-president of the Free Journalists’ Initiative (ÖGİ), a Diyarbakır-based journalistic group that monitors press freedom violations and aids journalists who face legal proceedings in Kurdish provinces.
Taşkın is a journalist based in the city of Van who mainly covers social and cultural news. At the time of her arrest, she was working on several reports, including a story about the family of Sisê Bingöl. Authorities jailed the 78-year-old woman in June 2016 in Muş’s Varto district on accusations of being a “terrorist” before sentencing her to four years and two months in prison. Boltan told MMF that this type of reporting is often considered as threatening to the state as it reveals police violations. “The public has the right to be informed about this unjust imprisonment. This is what Seda was trying to do when she was targeted by the state.”
Ill treatment from police, threats from the prosecutor
Turkish authorities arrested Taşkın on 20 December 2017 before freeing her four days later. The prosecutor, however, filed an objection against the court’s release order. A month later, on 23 January, officers again arrested Taşkın in Ankara, where the journalist had gone to join her family.
In her defense, Taşkın told the court that police subjected her to a strip search after her initial arrest. “When I refused, they said they would force me,” she said via a judicial video conferencing system from Ankara’s Sincan Women Prison Facility, where she remains in custody pending trial. She was subjected to a second strip search before finally seeing her lawyer. “I was also physically beaten when I refused to get in the armoured vehicle. If I’m telling this, it’s because I want the court to take it into consideration,” she said.
The court didn’t appear greatly concerned.
Taşkın was also threatened after her initial release from custody. “The prosecutor told her ‘How can you be freed? You will see, we will file an objection’ in front of her lawyer as a witness,” Kaleli told the court.
The lawyer also said the evidence against her client was restricted to retweets and Facebook shares – mostly of news articles. There is not even a single article written by Taşkın in the case file, she said. “You may not like the agency where my client works. But this agency is still operating legally, and this is about freedom of expression and press freedom.”[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”100383″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]Touring villages with her camera
Included in the indictment as evidence was a “package” that a colleague sought to give Taşkın. There was a certain air of mystery to the private Instagram conversation between Taşkın and her colleague, Diyarbakır-based journalist and photographer Refik Tekin, but the item in question was only a fleece – and police could have ascertained the innocence of the matter had they clicked on the embedded link in the conversation.
Tekin told MMF that the pair had merely discussed the logistics of Taşkın receiving the fleece in Muş. He eventually sent the item of clothing to the prison in Ankara after she was jailed, but Taşkın was still unable to obtain it: The fleece is dark blue – a color that is banned in prison because it matches the uniforms of guards.
Tekin said Taşkın loves photography. She would tour villages around Lake Van in search of news and human stories. “She is a very friendly person. People in villages are usually somewhat shy, but they would immediately open up to Seda,” Tekin said. “She took photos of children in villages, women working in fields… Those were beautiful, very touching. They would tell a story. She would be on the top of the world when her photos appeared in [the now-closed newspaper] Özgürlükçü Demokrasi,” he said.
Her close friend Nimet Ölmez, also a Van-based reporter for Mezopotamya, said Taşkın’s picture of two children returning from school with their dirty clothes and large baskets instead of backpacks helped raise awareness about the precarious situation of children living in the impoverished villages of the region. “They were shared on social media for days. So many people called and asked us how they could help.”
But she admits that Taşkın’s love for photography was perhaps a bit on the excessive side. “She would take so many photos that all our memory sticks would fill up. She once went to a village to report on some shepherd. He had around 200 sheep, but Seda still managed to come back with 230 photos – more than one photo per sheep,” she joked. “I really miss fighting for photos, memory sticks and news with her.”
On 30 April, the court ruled against Taşkın’s release on the grounds that she doesn’t use the name on her ID card, Seher, in daily life, even though everyone, including her close family, calls her Seda.
The next hearing will be held on 2 July in Muş – a town that appears in a popular song with the lyrics “the road to Muş is uphill.” Rather than just Muş, it seems the song’s writers were talking about the road to justice in Turkey today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-file-excel-o” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Media freedom violations reported to MMF since 24 May 2014
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Milan Antonijević (Craig Jackson / Human Rights House Foundation)
As one of Serbia’s most influential activists, Milan Antonijević uses the rule of law as his main line of defence in human rights protection. This is a major accomplishment considering he was a law student attending Belgrade University at the end of Milošević era, a time of censorship. Before Antonijević had completed his degree, the government fired any Serbian professor lecturing on the importance of human rights, gutting the education system of these important ideas.
However, Antonijević had barely reached adulthood in the wake of the atrocities that coincided with the Balkan wars and the fall of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Witnessing these events at a young age sparked a passion for activism in him, which was only further fuelled by his professors’ expulsion. He completed an informal education with these persistent lecturers, all of whom were human rights pioneers that bravely continued teaching despite losing their academic careers.
Antonijević has served as the director of YUCOM since 2005, joining the organisation in 2001 after formally receiving his MA in International Law, along with his human rights education on the side. Over the course of his career Antonijević has worked with a large number of human rights organisations, contributing to the creation of multiple campaigns and educational initiatives. This includes the Youth Group of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, where he advocated for tolerance and reconciliation to the youth of the Balkan region in 2000. He is also currently involved in a coalition project promoting LGBTQ rights in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.
Many of Antonijević’s successes in activism were made during his time leading YUCOM, the Belgrade-based Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights. Internationally recognised for its efforts in defence, its team of lawyers and experts provide legal assistance to victims of human rights violations before Serbian and international courts. YUCOM grants legal aid to more than 1,500 citizens annually and also represents other human rights organisations in court when needed. The organisation is currently aiding citizens in several cases and represents activist groups such as Woman in Black and Youth Initiative for Human Rights.
YUCOM advocates for the rule of the law and seeks court orders to ensure the proper implementation of Serbian legislation when required. With each case, the organisation works to ensure genuine commitment and implementation of new laws protecting human rights. These cases involve economic and social violations such as unequal access to public resources, hate crime, harassment, hate speech, and denied access to healthcare and education.
Many of Serbia’s citizens and marginalised communities are subject to these violations frequently. In addition to legal assistance, YUCOM also organises civic initiatives and campaigns to further advance their cause of human rights protection and defence. In January of 2018, they launched a project to bolster and improve the level of reporting on the rule of law in several Balkan nations.
Antonijević is also a founder and board member of Human Rights House Belgrade, which interacts with an international network to promote and defend human rights in Serbia. YUCOM is one of the five member organisations that contributes to the efforts of Human Rights House Belgrade, the other four being Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Civic Initiatives, Helsinki Committee, and Policy Centre.
Despite a regime that tried to hinder the formation of activist minds like Antonijević’s, he’s persisted with dedication to his cause, proving that censorship cannot stop a new generation from fighting for the rights of their fellow citizens.
Milan Antonijević spoke with Index on Censorship’s Samantha Chambers about the state of human rights in Serbia and his organisation’s work. Below is an edited version of their interview:
Index: What would you say are the most pressing human rights issues affecting Serbia’s democracy today?
Antonijević: To start, we can look at the rule of law and the possibility of our legal system to provide solutions for human rights violations. First, we spot deficiencies in implementation of existing law in the protection of human rights. So from the point of view of legislation and constitution, we do not have as many deficiencies, but there are still things that should be polished and there are improvements that can be made on the legal side. We’re identifying it in areas of discrimination, hate speech, hate crime, and in freedom of expression. I cannot say that there is any true implementation that we can be proud of. There is improvement, but the whole system of protection and implementation of the laws should be listed in order to really answer the needs of citizens for their rights to be fully protected.
Index: Just to verify, its solely the issue of the implementation laws and not the laws themselves causing human rights issues at the moment?
Antonijević: Yes, only the implementation of the laws, the laws themselves are agreed on by experts and the senate commission and so on, so full standards are there.
Index: Which human rights issues do you find yourself needed to defend the most often? What marginalised communities are facing the biggest threats?
Antonijević: YUCOM usually has around 2,000 cases per year defending rights through representation before the court, so this is our day to day work. Within those, generally we can say that economic and social rights are the biggest challenge for Serbia. But when speaking about marginalised groups and underrepresented minorities, the Roma are subject to multiple forms of discrimination, and there’s a breach on their rights in every level. So, of economic and social rights, specifically in healthcare, education and non-equal opportunities. In the Roma situation, there is no accurate response from the country’s social workers. Things are moving, we used to have a large population of Roma who were not registered, who didn’t have identification, who didn’t have any access to health care or welfare. Now things are solid on the level of the law, and they are solid on the level of implementation. If they do not have an address or live in an informal supplement, there are mechanisms in order to bring them into the system so that the system recognises them and gives them support.
Another minority group, the LGBT community also experiences harassment through hate speech and hate crimes without any adequate response from the state or from the judiciary. In Serbia we recently had a prime minister who was openly a member of this community. However, it hasn’t lowered the number of incidents for hate speech in front of the media or parliament.
Index: Why did you decide to work for and become the director of an NGO (YUCOM) defending human rights? Why is your work so important in the nation’s current state?
Antonijević: My passion for human rights began as a very young student. Some of my professors at Belgrade law school, who were deeply involved in human rights protection were expelled from the law school, by the regime under President Milošević. A new law that was adopted in 1996 on education, and later on in 1999, completely cleared the professors who were dealing with human rights from the law school. I just continued working with them through informal lessons and lectures. From that, I became devoted to human rights. In addition, some of the injustice that I witnessed from the armies in 1994 and 1995. In 1994 and 95 as a young kid of 18 or 19 years, I witnessed some of the mistreatment, and international justice became important to me.
Index: Do you find that academic censorship is still a very pressing issue in Serbia today?
Antonijević: Academically, the moves of Milosevic had a big negative influence, and the law school never recovered from that.Those professors didn’t come back to university to raise new generations, so now the education from the law school is leaning towards disrespect of human rights. I’m sorry to say that now, very rare are the professors who share the ideas of human rights in this law school.
Index: How did continue to learn from these professors after they were expelled?
Antonijević: Those were some of the people who were initially starting the human rights organisations at that time. They met with special groups of students because many of us worked in the same organisations, so we were able to meet and continue our education. You had to do continue with both had the formal education where you could get your degree and your diploma and you’d stay with the informal classes, with professors who were expelled. They were really the pioneers of human rights in 70s, 80s, 90s and are still the names that you quote today.
Index: Do the Balkan wars have an impact on human rights work in Serbia?
Antonijević: Yes.The Balkan wars led to gross human rights violations and displacement of populations on all sides, so neither side is innocent in that sense. Serbs were forced to leave Croatia and parts of Bosnia, Kosovo and the same can be said for all nations that used to live in ex-Yugoslavia. Only the civil society is speaking on the victims of other nations, while politicians are stuck in the rhetoric of proving that the nation that they come from is the biggest victim, quite far from the restoration of justice and future peace. When you have mass murders, mass graves, and disappeared persons, speaking out about human rights becomes a harder task. Frustrations are high on all sides, with reason.
Index: Has media freedom declined under Aleksandar Vučić?
Antonijević: Funding has a negative influence on the media, because subsidies are only given to media if they are pro-government, not to others. Sometimes there are higher taxes for media that is independent and there’s a disregard for journalists posing questions from these organisations. There are also trends that are visible often in other European countries, with officials and others using social media and fake news, there is an atmosphere that you can easily create in a country with that kind of attitude. People are not questioning the information that they’re getting, and its really leaving a lot of space for malinformation, leaving many misinformed.
Index: What do you find is YUCOM’s biggest struggle working under a sometimes oppressive regime? What have been the biggest systematic barriers in accomplishing the goals of the organisation?
Antonijević: I wouldn’t call it oppressive. We’re in this strange situation where you’re sitting at the table discussing legislation with the democratic officials of your country, but — at the same time — not seeing the change of policy on every level. We’ve managed to influence the induction of the laws, and we’re still working on the changes with the government so it’s not a typical regime where you cannot say one word against the government. They have proven that they are able to allow separation of powers and debate in our society. We’re just now talking about the quality of the democracy, not the existence or non-existence of the democracy. The country is really leaning towards the EU and all the EU values are repeated from time to time by our officials. It’s not something that can be compared with Russia. It’s really a bit different, however, we need more commitment to the laws. Examples we see are going in the wrong direction, on an implementation level. We have sets of laws that are not being fully implemented, including the labor laws, the anti-discrimination laws, hate speech and hate crime laws, laws on environmental protection, etc. A few years ago YUCOM organised a panel with the minister of labour at that time, who is still in the government, and we discussed the new labour laws. The minister stated openly that there is no “political will” to implement the law. But we must note that the political will has to come from the government, parliament, judges and prosecutors. Only they can generate it. The public can demand it, but we as a civil society can only demand this implementation.
Index: How have the human rights violations occurring in Serbia affected you personally?
Antonijević: There is a constant side against us by different non-paid sectors. Some of the media that are not quite pro-government are reading that we work with the officials. Sometimes we receive threats but they are not coming from the state. Receiving threats is something that happens in this area of work, especially in issues on war crimes and cases that are more sensitive.
Index: Why is it important for Yucom to be part of a larger organisation like Human Rights House Belgrade? What has the support of the larger organisation done for Yucom?
Antonijević: I’m the director of YUCOM, but we also founded the Human Rights House Belgrade. It’s a new possibility, a new space to have one place dedicated to human rights and the promotion of human rights. The Human Rights House concept has helped YUCOM gain visibility and connect us to activism on an international level with other Human Rights Houses across Europe. There are 19 other houses and we all have one unanimous voice and find support from one another. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Monitoring Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmappingmediafreedom.org|||”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]Press freedom violations in Serbia reported to Mapping Media Freedom since 24 May 2014.
[/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.
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Una mujer mira por la ventana, Hernán Piñera/Flickr
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”What New Labour did for free speech” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2007%2F06%2Fwhat-new-labour-did-for-free-speech%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Index takes a critical look at the health of free speech in the UK on New Labour’s tenth birthday in power. New restrictions on what you can say — and where you can say it — mean we have to mind our language more than we used to. Has the UK become a less tolerant society? How much has been sacrificed in the name of national security? Leading commentators examine the defining influences of the decade on free speech in the UK and assess how far new Labour has delivered on its promises to introduce more open government.
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