27 Apr 2017 | Mapping Media Freedom, News, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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What is usually the first pledge made by a politician who has won an election in his victory speech?
Erdogan’s was the death penalty.
Before the result of the 16 April referendum, which ended neck and neck, was even clear he came out onto the balcony and gave the “good news” to his supporters shouting “we want the death penalty!” that they would soon get their wish.
By abolishing the death penalty at the start of the 2000s, Turkey overcame an important obstacle in its negotiations with Europe. Now Erdogan is planning to bring back the death penalty, bombarding relations with Europe which are already at breaking point. And it was not just this. Two days after the referendum the government took the decision to extend the State of Emergency by three months. The extension of this emergency regime, which has been in force since 15 July 2016, was a concrete response to those expecting Erdogan to loosen the reins after the referendum. Sadly, Turkey now awaits not a time of relative peace, but a much more intense and chaotic period of repression.
There are a few different reasons for this.
The first is that it has become understood that Erdogan actually lost the referendum… Had the Supreme Electoral Board not taken the decision to count invalid votes as valid before the voting had even ended, Erdogan would not now be an executive president: he would be a leader who had lost a referendum. Since that day, hundreds of thousands of people have protested in the streets, shouting that their votes had been stolen. These protests have frightened the government, afraid they might turn into the Gezi uprisings of four years before. This is one reason for the increase in repression…
Another reason is that Erdogan has lost the big cities for the first time… The AKP, which has held onto key cities such as Istanbul and Ankara throughout its 15 years of power, has been beaten in these cities for the first time in this referendum. If we consider that Istanbul is the city in which Erdogan began his political career, it’s possible to say that his fall has also begun there. This is something that Erdogan will be losing sleep over…
Add to this disgruntlement an economy in the doldrums, especially with the wiping out of tourism revenues, and the withdrawal of the support from European capitals that had been given in pursuit of a refugee agreement, and you can understand why Erdogan is under so much pressure.
Now his only support comes from the Trump regime, which needs their help in Syria, from international capital which prefers authoritarian power to democratic chaos and from the social democratic opposition, still searching for a solution through a legal system that has long ago passed into Erdogan’s hands…
Can Erdogan balance out his shunning by Europe with the relationships he is striving to build with Trump and Putin?
By being part of the Syrian war, can he undo the tensions that are mounting at home?
Can he rein in the growing Kurdish problem by keeping jailed the co-presidents and around 10 MPs belonging to the HDP, the political representatives of the Kurds?
Can he hide the repression, lawlessness, and theft by jailing 150 journalists, silencing hundreds of media organs, throwing the foreign press out of the country and even punishing those who tweet?
I don’t think so.
All the data points to this last referendum being the beginning of the end for Erdogan. He will not go quietly, because he can guess what will happen to him if he loses power. But from here on in, he will pay a heavy price for every repressive act.
Just before the referendum, Theresa May visited Turkey and, turning a blind eye to the human rights violations, signed a contract for the construction of warplanes. Things in Ankara may have changed a great deal by the time those planes are ready.
Maybe in London too…
Yet those in Turkey fighting at the cost of their lives for democracy, a free media, and gender equality will never forget that the leader of a country accepted as “the cradle of these principles” did not even once mention them when she arrived in Ankara to trade arms.
Erdoğan için sonun başlangıcı
Seçim kazanmış bir siyasetçinin zafer konuşmasında ilk vaadi ne olabilir?
Erdoğan’ınki idam cezası oldu.
16 Nisan’da yapılan ve neredeyse başabaş sona eren referandumun kesin sonuçları açıklanmadan, sarayının balkonuna çıktı ve “İdam isteriz” diye bağıran taraftarlarına, istediklerine çok yakında kavuşacakları “müjdesini” verdi.
Türkiye, idam cezasını 2000’lerin başında kaldırarak, Avrupa ile müzakerelerin önündeki önemli bir engeli aşmıştı. Şimdi Erdoğan, idam cezasını yeniden getirerek Avrupa ile zaten kopma noktasındaki ilişkileri bombalamaya hazırlanıyor.
Sadece o da değil, referandumdan iki gün sonra Hükümet, Olağanüstü Hal’i üç ay daha uzatma kararı aldı. 15 Temmuz darbe girişiminden beri uygulanan sıkıyönetim rejiminin uzatılması, referandumdan sonra Erdoğan’ın ipleri gevşeteceğini bekleyenlere somut bir cevap oldu.
Ne yazık ki, Türkiye’yi huzur değil, çok daha ağır ve kaotik bir baskı dönemi bekliyor.
Bunun birkaç nedeni var:
Birincisi, referandumu Erdoğan’ın aslında kaybettiğinin anlaşılması… Henüz sandıklar kapanmadan, Yüksek Seçim Kurulu’nun aldığı bir kararla, geçersiz oylar geçerli sayılmasa, Erdoğan şu an Başkan değil, referandum kaybetmiş bir liderdi. O günden beri, yüzbinlerce insan caddelerde oylarının çalındığını haykırarak protesto gösterisi yapıyor. Bu protestoların, 4 yıl önceki Gezi ayaklanmasına dönüşmesi, iktidarı korkutuyor. Baskının artırılmasının bir nedeni bu…
Bir başka neden, Erdoğan’ın ilk kez büyük kentleri kaybetmiş olması… 15 yıllık iktidarı boyunca İstanbul, Ankara gibi kilit kentleri elinde tutan AKP, ilk kez bu referandumda bu şehirlerde yenildi. İstanbul’un, Erdoğan’ın siyasi kariyerine başladığı kent olduğu düşünüldüğünde, düşüşünün de oradan başladığını söylemek mümkün. Bu da, Erdoğan’ın uykularını kaçıran bir unsur…
Bu huzursuzluğa bir de özellikle turizm gelirlerinin sıfırlanmasıyla düşüşe geçen ekonomiyi ve Avrupa başkentlerinin mülteci anlaşması uğruna verdikleri desteği çekmesini ekleyin; Erdoğan’ın neden bu kadar sıkıştığını anlarsınız.
Şimdi tek dayanağı, Suriye’de kendisine ihtiyaç duyan Trump rejimi, demokratik bir kaos yerine otoriter bir istikrarı tercih eden uluslararası sermaye ve çareyi çoktan Erdoğan’ın eline geçmiş yargı sisteminde arayan sosyal demokrat muhalefet …
Erdoğan, Avrupa’dan dışlanışını, Trump ya da Putin’le kurmaya çabaladığı ilişkiyle dengeleyebilir mi?
Suriye savaşına dahil olarak, içerde yaşadığı gerilemeyi tersine çevirebilir mi?
Kürtlerin siyasi temsilcisi olan HDP’nin eşbaşkanlarını ve 10’u aşkın milletvekilini hapiste tutarak tırmanan Kürt sorununu dizginleyebilir mi?
150 gazeteciyi hapsedip, yüzlerce medya organını susturarak, yabancı basını ülkeden kovup tweet atanları bile cezalandırarak, yaşanan baskıları, hukuksuzlukları, hırsızlıkları saklayabilir mi?
Bence hayır.
Bütün veriler, son referandumun Erdoğan için sonun başlangıcı olduğunu ortaya koyuyor. Düşerse başına gelecekleri tahmin ettiği için kolay çekilmeyecektir. Ancak bundan sonra her yapacağı baskı için ağır bedel ödeyecektir.
Başbakan Theresa May’in tam referandum öncesi yaptığı Türkiye ziyaretinde, insan hakları ihlallerini görmezden gelerek yapımına imza attığı savaş uçakları hazır olduğunda, Ankara’da işler hayli değişmiş olabilir.
Belki Londra’da da…
Yine de demokrasi için, özgür medya için, laiklik için, kadın-erkek eşitliği için canı pahasına mücadele veren Türkiyeliler, “bu ilkelerin beşiği” kabul edilen ülkenin liderinin silah ticareti için geldiği Ankara’da, bu ilkeleri ağzına bile almamasını asla unutmayacaktır.
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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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26 Apr 2017 | Digital Freedom, Events, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”89947″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Join Index on Censorship, English PEN, Amnesty International UK, Reporters Sans Frontières, PEN International and the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation for our vigil outside the Turkish Embassy in London, in protest over the detention of journalists and writers in Turkey. The London protest is one of several taking place at Turkish embassies around the world on 3 May, World Press Freedom Day.
Turkey is currently the world’s biggest jailer of journalists: one third of all imprisoned journalists in the world are being held in Turkish prisons, the vast majority waiting to be brought to trial. Meanwhile, more than 160 media outlets have been closed.
Let us know if you’re coming and invite your friends via the Facebook event page and please share details of the vigil on Twitter with the hashtag #FreeTurkeyMedia
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_cta h2=”TAKE ACTION” h2_font_container=”color:%23dd3333″ h2_use_theme_fonts=”yes” shape=”square” use_custom_fonts_h2=”true”]Show your support on social media
We are asking fellow journalists, writers, and supporters of freedom of expression to show their support for the many journalists and writers currently imprisoned and on trial in Turkey. Please follow @FreeTurkeyMedia on Twitter and show your support by tweeting a photo with a sign reading #FreeTurkeyMedia #GazetecilikSuçDeğildir
Write to the authorities
You can send a letter via Amnesty’s website to Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ calling for the release of our imprisoned colleagues.
Please also write to the Turkish authorities
- Calling for all detained writers and journalists to have access to lawyers and to be released if they are not to be charged with a recognisably criminal offence and tried promptly in accordance with international fair trial standards;
- Calling on the authorities not to use the state of emergency to crack down on peaceful dissent, civil society, media and education.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Cumhurbaşkanlığı Külliyesi
06560 Beştepe-Ankara
Tel : (+90 312) 525 55 55
Fax : (+90 312) 525 58 31
E-mail: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecepTayyipErdogan
Twitter: @RT_Erdogan
Süleyman Soylu
Minister of Interior Affairs
Ministry of Interior Affairs
T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı, Bakanlıklar / Ankara, Republic of Turkey
Tel: (+90 312) 422 40 00
E-mail: [email protected]
Binali Yıldırım
Prime Minister
Çankaya Mah. Ziaur Rahman Cad. Çankaya / Ankara
Tel: (+90 312) 403 50 00
Fax: (+90 312) 422 10 00[/vc_cta][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”89946″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
24 Apr 2017 | News, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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With the hollowing out of the Turkish media landscape in recent years, honest coverage on the night of the historic referendum was rare. Only an hour or so after the polls closed, viewers across the nation left most of the sycophantic television networks and focused on the only one they believed was airing content worthy of their interest.
Murdoch-owned Fox TV’s openly secular and mildly nationalistic anchormen broke the news that there was something seriously wrong with the vote counting. Hour after hour, they featured the leaders of the No camp – those opposed to significantly increasing the powers of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and allowed them to speak critically about the results.
What these journalists did should not be considered extraordinary. They were simply doing their job by giving the referendum the fair and diverse coverage it deserved. But in Turkey, this was extraordinary: a single TV channel broke from its shackles, defied self-censorship and ended up with record-high ratings. Fox TV’s staff knew there was a growing public appetite for real news.
I personally witnessed this hunger on several occasions. Some of the news analysis posted on my personal blog, NAR, in which I dug into the emergency rule and the purge drew tens of thousands of readers from all directions. Most recently, my article about the content of a top-secret EU report on the coup at the Cologne-based Turkish-Kurdish independent news site Artigercek was read by more than 100,000 people in 48 hours.
It’s no wonder then that Fox TV was bombarded by AKP supporters who took to social media both during and after the broadcast, calling its coverage “treason”. These trolls demanded public prosecutors investigate the content. Their anxiety was, from their vantage point, justified: in a society where up to 88% of the public get news from TV sources, the Fox broadcasts would have an impact, penetrating the seemingly solid ground on which Erdogan and his supporters stand.
Yet it was only a glimmer of hope for the bulk of Turkish society, separated into two distinct camps by Erdogan’s ruthless desire for authoritarian rule. But the Fox referendum coverage at least gave optimists the ability to think that no matter how hard the oppression becomes, Turkey’s resilient journalists will do their best to resist.
The referendum race took place on “unlevel ground”, as international monitors described it, because Turkey’s media landscape has been warped. As a vital part of his strategic plan to take Turkey on the authoritarian path, Erdogan and his team, backed by the increasingly subservient judiciary, and sycophantic media proprietors, have meticulously and systematically narrowed the space for independent journalism since Gezi Park protests.
Since the summer of 2013, we have been forced to witness mass layoffs, detentions and the brutal shuttering or seizing of nearly 200 privately owned media outlets were brutally shut down or seized. The punitive measures had two key components: TV broadcasts were kept under strict scrutiny and the proprietors of the channels were either bribed with large contracts or simply threatened with closure. There was also a deliberate move to demolish the Cihan News Agency’s powerful network, which had been key to an independent monitoring of earlier elections. Both actions worked successfully for Erdogan’s autocratic architecture.
As of 16 April 2017, the only two independent TV channels remaining are Fox TV and Halk TV. The vote counting was covered only by the Anatolian Agency, which is entirely under the rigid control of the ruling AKP. It was still remarkable that Turkey’s crippled and tarnished journalism could find a breathing space and reach out to public.
One wonders what the result of the referendum would have been if proper and balanced media coverage had taken place. Most probably the No camp would have benefited. But the ugly reality is that self-censorship has become normal and internalised in Turkey, especially since the last summer’s aborted coup. Neither investigative reporting nor public debate now exists.
The overwhelming majority of journalists who have been jailed – including the recently detained Die Welt correspondent Deniz Yücel – dared to dig into the corruption schemes that include, allegedly, the president and his family. Nearly all those behind bars – excluding Kurdish journalists, who find themselves targetted for many additional reasons – are editors, columnists and pundits who have tried to keep corruption and abuses of power under the spotlight.
In the post-referendum era, the restrictive conditions will remain unchanged or get worse. Erdogan will inevitably see the media as being responsible for his narrow victory of 51.4 %. Rather than ease his iron grip on journalism, the president knows he has to win the elections in August 2019 to secure his way to one-man rule. He has an invaluable instrument with which to strangle the media, which became more obvious when, following the referendum, he extended emergency rule by another three months. Have no illusions that the state of emergency will be discontinued before the next election and expect even greater pressure in the coming months.
The signs in that direction are strong enough: four consecutive indictments in the past two months targeting various groups of critical journalists – most of them now in jail – have seen calls for aggravated lifetime imprisonment. The case of Cumhuriyet daily is a prime example: the court was remarkably slow in defining a date for proceedings and then set the date for late July. All those in jail awaiting to be trialled in this case will now spend an additional three months behind bars. Meanwhile, the arrest of the newspaper’s accountant implies that the authorities are intent on weakening it — perhaps to extinction. Similar pressure should also be expected over the already strained Doğan Media Group.
Whether or not Fox TV will also be punished for its election coverage remains to be seen, but take it for granted that no critical pocket of journalism will remain unharmed. No wonder why many independent journalists are busy these days contemplating whether or not moving their base beyond Turkey’s borders will save their noble profession.
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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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21 Apr 2017 | News, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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“Of course my family are worried. Who in this country isn’t worried?” says Ramazan Ölçen, who was detained for owning the copyrights to Azadiya Welat (Freedom of the country), what was Turkey’s only Kurdish-language daily newspaper. It was shut down by a cabinet decree issued under Turkey’s state of emergency, which has been in place since 20 July 2016.
“On 4 March 2017, at around 6am, special operations officers and counterterrorism police raided my house [in Diyarbakır], which was completely unnecessary,” he says. “I would have voluntarily gone and testified if the prosecutor’s office had sent me a notice.”
Ölçen’s wife was terrified by the “special operations officers wearing masks on their faces and sporting automatic rifles” he says. “Honestly, I too was afraid.”
The couple’s one-year-old was spared that fear as he was asleep throughout. “He didn’t wake up to all that noise,” Ölçen says.
The officers searched the house for about an hour but found no evidence of a crime. They seized Ölçen’s mobile phone and he was taken into custody. He was held for two days and released on 6 March, but his family are still deeply worried.
“Detention was a situation we did anticipate, yet we were still surprised [by the raid],” he says.“We were expecting it because they were rounding up everyone whose name appeared in the mastheads of the press organisations that were shut down under Cabinet decrees to testify.”
From teaching French to Azadiya Welat
Ölçen was born in 1981 in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır. He graduated in French from Dicle University in 2003. For three years, he taught French at various schools as a contract teacher. “In 2006 I gave up teaching and chose not to renew my contract. Of course, school principals who didn’t deem contract teachers as teachers played a role in my decision. As did local education directors, ministry bureaucrats, education ministers and the government’s overall education policies.”
In 2008 Ölçen started working as a journalist at Azadiya Welat. He assumed many roles until the newspaper’s closure, from news editor and editor of culture and arts to editor of the language and literature pages.
In 2014 the formal owner of Azadiya Welat parted ways with the newspaper. Ölçen assumed the responsibility and became the formal owner of the copyrights of Zozan Publishing, the publishing group under which Azadiya Welat was published. “As such, my name formally entered the masthead of the newspaper of Apê Musa,” Ölçen said, referring to Musa Anter, a Kurdish dissident intellectual and writer, who was assassinated in 1992, often referred to as “apê” (uncle), a word of both affection and esteem.
“This was a source of immense pride for me and until the day it was shut down with a cabinet decree I tried my best to be worthy of the tradition of Apê Musa in terms of serving the Kurdish language.”
At Azadiya Welat, the day started with the editorial morning meeting. In addition to journalism and editing, Ölçen was in charge of administrative affairs. They worked hard to meet the printing deadlines.
On 28 August 2016 the police raided the newspaper’s head office in Diyarbakır, detaining 25 of its employees. The newspaper was then only “temporarily” shut down. A new decree shuttered it permanently in October of the same year.
A troubled history
When the newspaper was closed, Ölçen started working as a freelance journalist, as did around 3,500 other former employees.
Recently, Ölçen started working as an editor for the Kurdish language newspaper Rojeva Medya, which started publishing after Azadiya Welat’s closure. Rojeva is not a direct successor, Ölçen says, most of its employees are former Azadiya Welat journalists, and the two have very similar editorial policies.
Azadiya Welat, which had been in print for 21 years, was no stranger to suppression. As a Kurdish outlet, even before the state of emergency, it was constantly harassed by authorities, its journalists routinely imprisoned and tried. It was shut down and reopened countless times. Currently, ten of its journalists and distributors are in prison, most of them serving convictions issues before the coup attempt.
Many of its journalists have been in and out of jail since that first raid in August 2016, but the price the newspaper has paid in its nearly a quarter of a century history has been much higher than that.
In 2010, Metin Alataş, an Azadiya Welat distributor, was found hanging dead from an orange tree in Adana. In 2014, Kadri Bağdu, a distributor for Azadiya Welat was murdered in an armed attack.
More recently, Azadiya Welat journalist Rohat Aktaş was killed during a curfew in the southeastern town of Cizre while he was reporting on the security forces’ operations in the area. Aktaş was allegedly killed along with many other civilians who were hiding in a residential basement where they had taken refuge from the shelling in February 2016. But the authorities wouldn’t leave him alone after his death. On 7 March the Diyarbakır Prosecutor’s Office launched criminal proceedings against Aktaş. The prosecutor asked for up to seven years on terrorism-related charges for the slain journalist.
Not surprisingly, Kurds have had more than their fair share of difficulties since Turkey’s 15 July coup attempt. Many pro-Kurdish outlets have been shut down under Turkey’s state of emergency, which was itself extended this week for another three months. The ban on the Kurdish language seems to be making a de-facto comeback. With Turkey’s 16 April referendum expected to turn the country even more authoritarian, the prospects for any minority outlets being able to thrive seems slim. Will things ever improve for the country’s Kurdish media?
Ölçen is not entirely optimistic. “However, I am not completely hopeless either. There have always been pressures and there always will be. But there has also always been resistance against pressure, and those will also always be.”[/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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