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Join Index on Censorship and English PEN for a vigil outside the Turkish embassy in support of Ayşe Çelik and others currently persecuted for speaking out in Turkey. This vigil is part of a global campaign launched by the Initiative for Freedom of Expression – Turkey.
Çelik, a teacher, will stand trial beginning on Friday, accused of “promoting terrorist organisation propaganda” after she called in to a popular television entertainment show to plead for more media coverage of abuse and killings of civilians in Diyarbakir, south-east Turkey.
Thirty-one people who co-signed Çelik’s statement will also be tried alongside her. They all face more than seven years in prison if found guilty.
Index on Censorship stands with Ayşe Çelik and will not ignore this breach of her basic right to freedom of expression. We denounce the current crackdown undertaken by authorities in Turkey and call for the immediate and unconditional release of imprisoned writers Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan, Asli Erdogan and Necmiye Alpay.
We will be outside the Turkish embassy from 2pm to 3pm.
Here is the full statement that landed Çelik in court:
Are you aware of what’s going on in Southeast Turkey? Unborn children, mothers, people are being killed here. As a performer, as a human being you should not remain silent to what’s happening. You should say stop. I want to say one more thing. There are miserable people who are glad to hear that children are dying. We, more correctly I, cannot say anything to these people, but shame on you. I’m sorry I want to say one more thing. I’m a teacher and I’m asking all teachers (who fled the area): How will they ever go back to these places? How will they look at those innocent children’s faces and into their eyes? I can’t speak really. The things happening here are reflected so differently on TV screens or on the media. Don’t remain silent. As a human being, have a sensitive approach. See, hear and lend a hand to us. It’s a pity, don’t let those people, those children die; don’t let the mothers cry anymore. I can’t even speak over the sounds of the bombs and bullets. People are struggling with starvation and thirst, babies and children too. Don’t remain silent.
When: Friday 23 September 2pm
Where: 43 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PA (Map)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Philip Janek / Demotix)
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. The crackdown appears to be getting worse, according to a new report by Amnesty International this month. It states that the “human rights situation deteriorated markedly” in Turkey in 2015, as did respect for freedom of expression, including criminal detention though anti-terror laws and the targeting of anyone critical of government policy.
Despite the welcome release of Cumhuriyet journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül on 26 February, the situation for media freedom looks uncertain. Here are some of the most worrying reports from February.
In total, Mapping Media Freedom has recorded the deaths of 15 journalists since July 2014. Seven of these deaths have occurred in Turkey, two of those in this year alone. Gülsen Yıldız, a journalist working in Ankara for Tarim TV, was killed on 18 February. She was among 28 people who died during a terrorist attack on passing military vehicles in the capital.
Source: Index on Censorship / Mapping Media Freedom
Later in February, the discovery of a body, later identified as journalist Rohat Aktaş, in the southeastern town of Cizre. Aktaş had been shot in the arm in late January while covering efforts to help those wounded during clashes between Kurdish separatists and Turkish forces.
On 24 February, Dicle-Haber reported that Aktaş’ body was identified by DNA tests carried out by the forensic authority. “Scores” of people are reported to have been killed in Cizre following a raid by security services on buildings they say harboured Kurdish separatist fighters. The exact details of Aktaş’ death are currently unknown.
This year began on a somewhat positive note with the 5 January release of VICE News journalist Mohammed Ismael Rasool. Rasool, an Iraqi Kurdish reporter, had been detained since 27 August 2015 while reporting in the country’s southeast and charged with working for a terrorist organisation.
On 11 February, Nazım Daştan, a journalist for Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which reports in Kurdish, was arrested in Gaziantep on charges of spreading online propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the Turkish state lists as a terrorist group. On the next day, he was brought to testify in court and then taken to jail.
On the same date, Feyyaz İmrak, also journalist for Dicle News Agency (DİHA), was arrested along with 16 others on charges of being members of the PKK. Police searched his home and confiscated his reporting equipment and notes.
İmrak appeared before a criminal court 15 February to hear the charges against him, and is currently being held at Antalya Prison, pending trial.
Gazeteci Silje Rønning Kampesæter nişanlısı Kürt olduğu için Türkiye’den kovulmuş. #BravoAKP https://t.co/DHsxSV85rh pic.twitter.com/voLl4FJfWX
— Stefan Fenzi (@sfen_) February 10, 2016
For any journalist, access to sources is essential for their ability to carry out their duties. The denial of access is a major problem for journalists in Turkey, something foreign journalists know all too well.
On 9 February, Turkish authorities rejected a permanent press accreditation application filed by Silje Rønning Kampesæter, a correspondent for Norway’s Aftenposten. The press accreditation application also affects her residence permit in Turkey. No reason was given for the rejection.
The authorities also detained Claus Blok Thomsen, a Danish journalist working for Denmark’s daily newspaper Politiken, at the Istanbul airport, barring him from entering the country. The journalist was seeking access to report on refugees at the Turkish-Syrian border.
When Thomsen identified himself as a journalist, police forced him to open his phone and computer, undermining the confidentiality of his sources. He was then detained in a cell overnight and put on a plane to Copenhagen the next day. He was reportedly told to not try re-entering Turkey.
Also see:
Statement: Index condemns seizure of Zaman
Sign Our Petition: End Turkey’s crackdown on press freedom
Letter: Writers and artists condemn seizure of Zaman news group
Reaction: Turkish court orders seizure of Zaman news group
This article was originally published at Index on Censorship.
Mapping Media Freedom
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The top of Frederike Geerdink’s blog, Kurdish Matters, still reads: ‘The only foreign journalist based in Diyarbakir’. The Dutch reporter was the only foreign journalist in Turkish Kurdistan until 9 September 2015 when she was deported from the country she lived and worked for nine years.
“There I went in a military convoy, first from Yüksekova to Hakkari, then from Hakkari to Van,” Geerdink wrote a few days later. “As the soldiers were playing loud, rousing nationalist music, I realised that I had turned into a PKK target, being transported on a dark mountainous Kurdistan road in a military vehicle with windows too small to see the starry sky.”
From Van, she’d fly to Istanbul where she’d be forced on a plane back to her The Netherlands. A couple of days earlier she had been arrested while traveling with and reporting on the activities of a group of Kurdish activists who call themselves the Human Shield Group. She was accused of illegally entering a restricted zone and engaging “in an act that helped a terrorist organisation”.
After nine years in Turkey, three of which were in Kurdistan, Geerdink had lost her second home. “I left my heart in Kurdistan,” she posted on Facebook after she’d landed at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. “I don’t know when, but I will return.”
In the same week when Geerdink was deported, the English version of her book, The Boys are Dead, about the Roboski massacre and the Kurdish question in Turkey, was launched. “A coincidence,” she told Index on Censorship. “I don’t think the Turkish government had planned to help me promote my book.”
A few weeks after her ordeal, she was living a nomadic life in The Netherlands, moving from place to place, staying with friends or family, not really feeling at home anywhere. “I don’t want to be here,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, everyone is really kind, but I don’t belong here anymore. I want to be there.”
Turkey has one of the world’s worst records on media freedom. Index’s Mapping Media Freedom project has so far recorded 160 reports of violations against journalists in the country since May 2014. Reporters Without Borders has ranked Turkey 154th out of 180 countries on press freedom, and according to Freedom House, Turkey’s status declined from Partly Free to Not Free in 2013.
Reporting on the position of Kurds in Turkey is exceptionally difficult. Prominent journalists have been fired over their coverage of negotiations between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Kurdish and Turkish journalists are often targeted by the police and courts, although it is rare for a foreign journalist to be singled out.
Back in January 2015, Geerdink was arrested by the Turkish authorities for the first time. Her house was searched, she was briefly detained and faced up to five years in prison for ‘terrorist propaganda’. Her detention was condemned worldwide and she was acquitted of the charges in April. Her deportation just a few months later came as a big shock.
Now that even foreign journalists are being targeted, Geerdink said, shows just how bad things are for the position of Kurds in Turkey. “I was the only journalist based there and now there’s one less witness on the ground. And the fewer the witnesses, the more the state has a free hand.”
She added that her treatment should be a warning to others. “They are saying: ‘watch where you go or we’ll kick you out’.” On the other hand, she thinks her deportation brings a lot of negative publicity onto the Turkish government and how they treat journalists, which can be used to put more pressure on the authorities.
In September, two UK-based reporters for VICE were arrested while reporting in Diyarbakir. Although they were released, their Iraqi colleague remains in jail. Seven local journalists are currently detained in the country, many of whom are Kurds. Being a foreigner, Geerdink said the spotlight is on her, but there are many Kurds in prison who nobody knows about, and they deserve the same amount of publicity. “For them it is a matter of life and death.”
Geerdink hopes to return to Turkish Kurdistan as soon as she’s allowed back in. Her lawyers are working hard to appeal the verdict on her deportation. Meanwhile, she is focussing on Syrian Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan and Kurds in Europe.
“I will still be Kurdistan correspondent no matter where I am based.”
Mapping Media Freedom
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Irfan Atkan has been sentenced to 15 months in prison under Turkey’s draconian anti-terror laws
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