05 Jun 17 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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Journalist Murat Aksoy has been detained since his first arrest on 3 September 2016. Above, Aksoy with his wife Şehriban, daughter Zehra Duru and son Ali Emre.
Journalist Murat Aksoy was arrested twice during the government’s investigations into Turkey’s failed coup of 15 July.
On 6 June, prosecutors filed an indictment seeking two life sentences for Aksoy and 12 other defendants.
His first arrest was on 3 September 2016 on suspicion of being involved with the Fethullah Gülen network — an Islamist group allegedly behind the attempted coup, officially called the Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation (FETÖ) by the regime.
A court ordered Aksoy released on 31 March pending trial, but before he even left Silivri Prison he was detained again along with 13 others, this time on charges of “attempting to overthrow the government”.
The charges are baffling, according to his wife of 17 years, Şehriban Aksoy. “When the headscarf was banned, he always wrote articles against the ban. We are speaking of a man who stated at every opportunity that the state doesn’t have the right to interfere in anyone’s outfit.”
Except for a brief period at the Millet newspaper, Aksoy did not work at any news organisations believed to be affiliated with the Gülen group — something that is now considered a crime. He wasn’t even religious, according to Şehriban.
“Our families are from Tunceli, we are Alevi,” his wife says, referring to a religious minority group in Turkey, whose practices and beliefs often fall outside the scope of Islam, although there are those who argue that it is part of the faith. “Being an Alevi, he defended people’s right to wear the headscarf; their freedom. This [imprisonment] has happened to someone defending [this right]. He hasn’t written a single line in his entire life praising FETÖ.”
He has worked for many outlets. When they conducted the first wave of the post-coup arrests, he hosted a radio programme on YÖN FM, a pro-Republican People’s Party (CHP) radio station. A government minister once featured on his programme. He also worked for eight years at Yeni Şafak, a pro-government daily.
At the time of this dismissal, the couple’s son Ali Emre had just been born. “We needed an income. That’s why he agreed to write for Millet when the newspaper made an offer,” Şehriban said. The outlet was shuttered under the first cabinet decree issued under Turkey’s state of emergency rule, which was introduced after the coup attempt.
A life of journalism
Aksoy was born in 1968 in Erzincan, although his birth year on his ID card is 1972. It is a common practice in rural Turkey for children to sometimes be officially registered a few years after their actual birth.
According to his wife and many others who know him, Aksoy is a sentimental and emotional man who easily gets teary-eyed. This may be because of his background, Şehriban says. When Aksoy was young, his family moved to Istanbul where his father owned a grocery store. When he was in the first grade, his mother died after a long illness. With his father busy working, Aksoy was often left in the care of his father’s sister-in-law.
The family lived in Okmeydanı, a predominantly Alevi neighbourhood in Istanbul. This is where Aksoy and Şehriban met as children. “We both lived on the street where Berkin was shot,” Şehriban remembers, referring to Berkin Elvan, a 14-year-old boy who was injured during the Gezi protests when a police officer aimed a gas canister at his head. Elvan died following 269 days in a coma.
Aksoy attended the Kabataş High School in Istanbul. After graduation, he studied business management at Erciyes University in Kayseri, although he never worked in business. Shortly after graduating from the university in the early 1990s, he worked briefly for the newspaper Radikal, and then at various civil society organisations. During his time at the Islamist Yeni Şafak, where “he never hid his true identity [as an Alevi],” according to his wife.
Days filled with work and kids
Aksoy was fired by Yeni Şafak in the constrained atmosphere in the months after the anti-government Gezi Park protests of 2013. In the columns he wrote at the time, Aksoy had criticised the government’s brutal approach toward peaceful protesters. “They first cut his column down to fewer days. Then they slowly drove him away just the way they slowly drove us away from Silivri Prison that night,” his wife says.
He was finally terminated by the paper in early January 2014 when he expressed an opinion about the government’s handling of a political crisis following a December 2013 corruption scandal in which four ministers and members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s family were implicated.
After he left Yeni Şafak, Aksoy worked exclusively from home. He would get up at around 7am, read the newspapers and take notes while having breakfast, and then send his daughter to school. He later worked in his study, writing articles or preparing for television programmes where he often appeared as a commentator. He would go grocery shopping or go on walks with his wife. When his daughter got home from school, Aksoy usually helped her with her homework.
In addition to writing for various newspapers, Aksoy worked as a consultant for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and he was on the parliament payroll. This was an important means of financial support for the family, but it was cut off after his arrest by the parliament administration. Şehriban, who has to take care of two small children, doesn’t have a job.
The case against Murat Aksoy
Although Aksoy was arrested for aiding FETÖ through his work, his accusers “can’t cite a single article which serves this alleged purpose,” says Şehriban.
He is being represented by a prominent human rights lawyer, Yaman Akdeniz, who was nominated for a 2015 Freedom of Expression Award for his work defending online rights. Aksoy was also accused of having prior knowledge of the coup plot because he had warned viewers in a program on pro-CHP Halk TV that there were rumours of a coup preparation.
The night when Şehriban and her family waited for Aksoy’s release in vain has been a major trauma for the family. “It took me a full week to recover. You have these crazy thoughts, you say to yourself ‘let this end now’. It was like a nightmare,” she says. “While they were kept in police custody for 15 days in between their release and second arrest, I thought at least we could talk on the phone every two weeks when he was in prison, but they don’t let you do that in detention.”
For many of the families caught up in the coup trials, the hardest part is managing the feelings of their children. Aksoy and Şehriban have two, a son and a daughter: Ali Emre is two-years-old and Zehra Duru is 10.
Ali Emre’s second birthday took place about a month after her father was arrested. “He has been growing more quickly after his father’s arrest. He sometimes takes his father’s photograph to bed with him and kisses is,” Şehriban says. “The children miss their father immensely. I take them to see their father once a month during open visits.”
Aksoy also misses his children. “The last time we visited, Ali Emre bit his ear, but his father didn’t notice; he was so thrilled to be holding his son. I gave him a tissue, and he asked me why. He had no idea his ear was bleeding,” his wife says.
For the first few months of Aksoy’s imprisonment, the family told Duru that her dad had gone to a writers’ camp to work on a report with fellow writers. Into the fourth month, they had an honest conversation with her. “I explained to her that her father is a good man and he is in prison because of a thought crime. Now she knows, she says that her father is in prison because he defended what’s right,” Şehriban says.
The family was lucky in comparison with many others who were imprisoned in the coup-related trials: Duru’s friends at school didn’t stop talking to her.
The night when her father wasn’t released despite the court ruling was among the hardest moments for the little girl. “Duru wanted to drive with me to prison to pick him up. I convinced her to stay at home, and I said ‘your father will be here when you wake up in the morning’. I promised her,” Şehriban says. “The next morning, she woke up and started going into every room inside the house, looking for her father. It was perhaps more difficult than when he was arrested for the first time. Then she started yelling at me: ‘You are a liar, you lie!’ Our relationship was horrible for an entire month.”
Şehriban is thankful her husband isn’t mistreated in prison, but quickly adds that he and his fellow inmates don’t trust prison food. At meal times, they buy ready-made soup mixes and canned food from the prison cafeteria.
Not everything has been nightmarish through the ordeal. Opposition politicians have been supportive. CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu publicly said of Aksoy: “I am as certain that he [is not related to any terror groups] as I am certain of myself.”
“But when they were arrested for the second time, I knew that this was something else. They couldn’t satisfy their wrath. They should just tell us that he is in prison because of his critical views. They did the same thing to Sözcü,” his wife says, referring to recent operations where two employees of the newspaper, which is staunchly secular and also outspokenly anti-government, were arrested on “FETÖ” related charges.
Sunlight in the doctor’s office
Although Aksoy was never subject to any physical abuse, he has had difficulty coping with being in prison. “He cried a lot,” remembers Şehriban.
Like most other journalists imprisoned in the coup investigation, Aksoy cannot see the other journalists kept at Silivri Section-9. He shares a cell with singer-turned-journalist Atilla Taş and journalist Gökçe Fırat Çulhaoğlu, and those are the only two people whom he can have conversations with. They are allowed in the open-air briefly in very tiny courtyards, which are covered by wired fences all around, making it impossible to get a full view of the sky.
Aksoy has started seeing the prison psychiatrist. He finds the sessions helpful, but what he enjoys most is visiting the doctor’s office. As Şehriban explains: “You get to see a different scenery. For example, there is an artificial plant in the room, which makes him really happy. There are medicine cabinets; files with the names of his fellow journalists on them. Also, at the doctor’s office, he says gets a lot of sunlight. He says he deliberately places his chair in the sun; that he regrets those days when he never once even looked up in the sky when he was free.”[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
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29 May 17 | Azerbaijan, Digital Freedom, Europe and Central Asia, France, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Uncategorized
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Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
24 May, 2017 – The body of the well-known editor-in-chief and founder of local newspaper Ton-M was found in the sauna in his backyard on 24 May in the town of Minusinsk in the Krasnodarski province, Regional Investigative Committee reported.
Dmitri Popkov was shot five times by an unidentified perpetrator according to the Regional Investigative Committee.
Popkov funds Ton-M which includes commentary on police corruption, garnering significant public attention for the publication. In an interview with RFE/RL, Popkov claims his newspaper became “an obstacle” for local officials who are now “threatening and intimidating journalists”.
Popkov founded the publication after a court found him guilty of beating a child and he was stripped of his position on Minusinsk City Council in 2012, according to The Moscow Times. Popkov claimed the case was an excuse to fire him.
Outside of the newspaper business, Popkov is recognisable in his region as a regional parliament deputy for the Communist Party.
22 May, 2017 – An independent reporter was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in administrative detention for allegedly resisting police.
Nijat Amiraslanov is from the Gazakh region and his lawyer and friends say the charges are fictitious. They say he was arrested for his reporting and online posts.
19 May, 2017 – During a workers’ protest against market liberalisation, dock workers assaulted and intimidated reporters covering the event.
A cameraperson for Canal Sur Television and Antena 3 programme was injured requiring medical assistance at a local hospital after being punched and kicked.
19 May, 2017 – Four Sözcü employees received arrest warrants after being accused of “committing crimes on behalf of the Fetullahist Terrorist Organisation (FETÖ),” as well as assisting attempts to “assassinate and physically attack the president and armed rebellion against the Government of the Republic of Turkey”.
The issued warrants include the newspaper’s owner Burak Akbay, manager of the newspaper’s website Mediha Olgun, Financial Affairs Manager Yonca Kaleli and the İzmir correspondent Gökmen Ulu. Kaleli was included in the investigation for “suspicious money transfers” for the secular opposition publication.
The charges against the four stemmed from their 15 July 2016, publication of the address and photos of a hotel where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was vacationing.
Yonca Kaleli, Gökmen Ulu and Mediha Olgun have since been detained. Akbay is currently abroad.
18 May, 2017 – Macron’s head of communication insulted journalist Yann Barthès of Quotidien on channel TMC during the presidential campaign and now at the Elysee by calling him a “dickhead” and a “mentally-retarded person”, according to Le Monde M magazine.
Macron’s Sylvain Fort commented in reaction to show host Barthè’s coverage of the first round of the presidential election. Fort denies he used the latter phrase.
Quotidien showed Macron celebrating his victory at La Rotonde. Quotidien journalist Paul Larouturou asked Macron whether this episode was the equivalent of Nicolas Sarkozy’s celebration of his presidential victory at Fouquet’s. Macron told the journalist “you don’t understand anything about life”, adding he had “no lesson to receive from a small Parisian milieu”.
The magazine reported that access was restricted to Quotidien team and that Fort contacted Barthès directly to insult him.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 May 17 | Campaigns -- Featured, Digital Freedom, Turkey, Turkey Statements
Pen International, Article 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, International Press Institute and Reporters Without Borders call the attention of the UN Human Rights Council to the continuous deterioration of freedom of expression and other human rights in Turkey. Following the coup attempt on 15 July 2016, the Turkish authorities have pursued an unprecedented crackdown against perceived critics and opponents. As noted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression following his November visit to the country, counter-terrorism legislation and the prolonged state of emergency are being used to severely restrict fundamental rights and freedoms, stifle criticism and limit the diversity of views and opinions available in the public sphere.
Since the Special Rapporteur’s visit, independent mainstream media have been all but silenced. There are now over 160 media outlets and publishing houses closed down since July 2016 and around 165 journalists and media workers jailed pending trial. Over 100,000 civil servants have been summarily dismissed, with over 47,000 including army, police and teachers jailed pending trial on charges of involvement in the coup plot and of association with the alleged Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organisation (FETÖ). There has been a rise in allegations of torture or ill-treatment in police custody.
Turkey’s Kurdish population has also been disproportionally affected. The Turkish authorities frequently prosecute non-violent pro-Kurdish political activism or journalism for links with the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, the leaders of the parliamentary opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and other MPs from the party, have been in jail since November 2016. At least 87 municipalities in the southeast have been taken over by the government and their democratically elected mayors and officials removed or jailed. Several Kurdish journalists are incarcerated and most pro-Kurdish media outlets closed.
On 11 November 2016, the activities of some 370 NGOs were arbitrarily suspended, over half of them Kurdish organisations. Among the thousands of academics dismissed are around 400 who signed a January 2016 peace petition calling for an end to army abuses in the southeast.
Restrictions reached new heights in the lead up to Turkey’s contested constitutional referendum on 16 April 2017 which concentrated power in the office of the president. The campaign was marred by the authorities threatening, detaining and prosecuting individuals who voiced criticism of the proposed amendments.
Immediately after the referendum, president Erdogan raised the prospect of reintroducing the death penalty, which would be another disastrous step away from human rights norms for Turkey.
Journalists caught in Turkey’s crackdown
According to the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, an estimated 2,500 journalists and media workers have lost their jobs since July 2016. There are now at least 165 journalists, writers and media workers in prison, making Turkey the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.
Among these are several well-known writers and columnists, including Ahmet Şık, Şahin Alpay, Nazlı Ilıcak, Ahmet and Mehmet Altan, Ali Bulaç, Kadri Gürsel and the editor-in-chief of the opposition daily Cumhuriyet, Murat Sabuncu. Emergency provisions have been used to harass family members of journalists who have fled abroad or gone into hiding, including by cancelling their passports or detaining them in the stead of those accused.
Most detained journalists have been held in pre-trial detention for excessively long periods, facing terrorism charges with no access to the evidence against them and without compelling grounds to justify prolonging pre-trial detention. Indictments against journalists charge them with membership of armed organisations or involvement in the attempted coup without citing any other evidence beyond writings and commentary which neither advocate nor incite violence.
Detainees are only allowed one hour-long consultation with their lawyer a week and under supervision by prison staff, in violation of their right to confidential access to counsel.
As the Special Rapporteur pointed out in his recommendations, “nobody should be held in detention for expressing opinions that do not constitute an actual incitement to hatred or violence”. Moreover, imposing sanctions on individuals solely for criticising the government can never be considered a proportionate restriction on freedom of expression.
Lack of media freedom and pluralism
As stressed by the UN Human Rights Committee, “a free, uncensored and unhindered press or other media is essential in any society to ensure freedom of opinion and expression and the enjoyment of other Covenant rights. It constitutes one of the cornerstones of a democratic society.” States are under an obligation to create a favourable environment where different and alternative ideas can flourish, allowing people to express themselves and to participate in public debates without fear.
The 16 April constitutional referendum took place in a repressive climate. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election observation mission noted the “unlevel playing field” and reported major concerns, including restrictions on freedom of expression under the state of emergency, lack of independent media, police interventions, detentions at “No” campaign events and biased use of state resources. Several opposition parties raised concerns about possible election fraud and irregularities and the European Commission called on the authorities to launch transparent investigations.
Our organisations are also alarmed at reports of attacks and arrests directed at voters following the referendum.
Rule of law and independence of the judiciary at risk
Turkey’s judicial system has come under attack since the failed coup. More than 4,000 judges and prosecutors have been permanently dismissed and among them around 2,500 are in pre-trial detention. Turkey’s Constitutional Court has not ruled on the thousands of pending cases relating to dismissals under state of emergency decrees and the government has not yet established its planned ad hoc commission to review the measures.
There are grave concerns that the constitutional amendments passed by referendum will lead to greater political control over the judiciary and further undermine the rule of law in Turkey. One amendment with immediate effect is the president’s ability to exert control over most appointments to the Council of Judges and Prosecutors. The modifications will have a profound impact on Turkey’s Constitutional Court, severely curtailing its ability to serve as an effective check of executive and legislative power and a guarantor of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Politicised court decisions against journalists and, conversely, the removal of judges who have granted bail to journalists have played a central role in the deterioration of press freedom.
Recommendations
The Turkish authorities have repeatedly failed to respect their obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
In the preliminary observations following his visit to Turkey, the Special Rapporteur urged the Turkish government to take immediate steps to protect freedom of expression, listing a number of concrete measures necessary to achieve this. These still stand.
We urge the UN Human Rights Council to press the Turkish authorities to:
Immediately release all those held in prison for exercising their rights to freedom of opinion and expression;
End the state of emergency;
End the prosecutions and detention of journalists simply on the basis of the content of their journalism or alleged affiliations;
Permit the reopening and independent operation of closed media outlets (including online publications) and halt executive interference with independent news organisations, including in relation to editorial decisions, dismissals of journalists and editors, pressure and intimidation against critical news outlets and journalists;
End the far-reaching crackdown on freedom of expression that has consistently escalated since the failed coup of July 2016;
Uphold the independence of the judiciary;
Investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention;
Review the Anti-Terror Law so as to ensure that counter-terrorism measures are compatible with Article 19(3) of the ICCPR;
Reject any proposal to reintroduce the death penalty.
The Association of European Journalists, the European Federation of Journalists and Index on Censorship, NGOs without consultative status, also share the views expressed in this statement.
08 May 17 | Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey
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Journalist Ahmet Altan is charged with inserting subliminal messages in support of the failed 15 July coup in Turkey.
Nine months. That’s how long brothers Ahmet and Mehmet Altan have been in pre-trail detention in Turkey. Prosecutors are demanding multiple life sentences for the brothers, who will face their first day in court on 19 June.
“The case against Ahmet and Mehmet Altan is deeply troubling. The ongoing judicial harassment of the Altans and other journalists puts ‘democratic’ Turkey in the same camp as some of the world’s most egregious dictatorships. The post-coup crackdown on freedom of expression and the press must be rolled back,” Melody Patry, head of advocacy, Index on Censorship said.
Ahmet Altan has written for several of the country’s most influential newspapers. He and his brother Mehmet, an academic, were arrested and are being held on suspicion of “spreading subliminal messages”, relating to an appearance Ahmet Altan made on a television talk show the night before the 15 July coup attempt.
Ahmet Altan is one of Turkey’s top journalists, having worked in every position from reporter to editor-in-chief at several newspapers, as well as a producer of television news. He was a columnist for daily newspapers including Hurriyet and Milliyet, and in 2007 he started Taraf, an opposition daily. In 2008 he was charged with “denigrating Turkishness” after he wrote an article dedicated to the victims of the Armenian genocide. He is also considered one of Turkey’s finest novelists, with his most recent book, Endgame, having been published last year.
Mehmet Altan is a professor at Istanbul university, where he has worked for 30 years. A vocal supporter of democracy, he has often called for Turkey to establish its republic on human rights, rather than religious or ethnic identity. He has written several books about politics in Turkey.
The pair were arrested in an early morning raid on 10 September. Ahmet had appeared on a talk show on the Can Erzincan television channel on 14 July, where he is accused of sending messages to viewers to support a coup. The channel has since been shut down. It was perceived by authorities to have been supportive of the cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government blames for the coup.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
TAKE ACTION
Send a letter of support to Ahmet and Mehmet Altan.
Show your solidarity with the Altans by letting them know the world is watching their case.
Tweet Turkey’s president:
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Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
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