18 Jan 17 | Magazine, News and features, Turkey, Volume 45.04 Winter 2016 Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Imprisoned journalists make headlines, but the Turkish government has a more insidious method for controlling the media, researchers BURAK BILGEHAN ÖZPEK and BAŞAK YAVCAN argue in an unpublished report excerpted in the winter edition of Index on Censorship magazine” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”84920″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Advertising is the latest way for the Turkish government to lean on the media to stop critical stories going into the press, according to unpublished research.
The large advertising budgets of state-controlled Turkish industries like banks, telecoms companies and Turkish Airlines are being used by the government to develop a financial grip over newspapers and control what they report.
Patterns of advertising during 2015 suggest that newspapers which do not toe the government line, or are hostile, are being starved of those revenues.
For instance, Sabah, a newspaper particularly sympathetic to the government, received more than 20% of the advertising budget of the state-controlled bank Halk Bank, while the independent Hürriyet received only 2.9%, despite both having a similar circulation.
Government-controlled telecoms company Turkcell also favoured Sabah by giving it 9.4% of its advertising, while Hürriyet took just 3.1%.
The situation was similar for another state-controlled telecoms company, Turk Telekom: Sabah received more than twice Hürriyet’s share of their total advertising.
Their research found that any paper critical of the government – those associated with the social democratic movement, liberalism, Kemalism, nationalism, Islamism – was either discriminated against, or excluded entirely, when it came to crucial advertising revenue.
Table: Daily newspapers’ share of advertising from part-public firms in 2015
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Burak Bilgehan Özpek is an associate professor and Başak Yavcan is an assistant professor in the department of political science and international relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara. This is an extract of their article from the winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, which is based on their as-yet unpublished research into press freedom in Turkey. The magazine article can be read in full for free on Sage Journals until 31 January 2017.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Fashion Rules” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2016%2F12%2Ffashion-rules%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear.
In the issue: interviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”82377″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/12/fashion-rules/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Jan 17 | France, Greece, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81193″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]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.
A Hatay court issued a detention order for Ceren Taşkin, a reporter for the local newspaper Hatay Ses, on the basis of her social media posts, news website Gazete Karinca reported.
Taşkin was detained earlier for “spreading propaganda for a terrorist group” via her social media posts. Taşkin was arrested and sent to prison on 12 January on the same charges.
Her arrest brings the number of journalists in prison to 148, Platform 24 reported.
The National Radio and TV Council has banned independent Russian television channel Dozhd from broadcasting in the country.
“The channel portrayed the administrative border between Crimea and Kherson region as the border between Ukraine and Russia,” national council member Serhiy Kostynskyy said during a council meeting, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
According to Kostynskyy, the channel repeatedly violated Ukrainian law in 2016 by broadcasting Russian advertising and having Dozhd journalists illegally enter annexed Crimea from the Russian Federation without receiving special permission.
The ban is set to be officially published by the authorities on 16 January, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
Dozhd Director Natalya Sindeyeva said that the channel is broadcasting through IP-connection without direct commercial advertising in Ukraine and follows the Russian Federation law requiring that media outlets use maps to show Crimea as part of Russia.
Dunja Mijatovic, media freedom representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, wrote on her Twitter that this decision is “very damaging to media pluralism in Ukraine.”
Police arrested Giannis Kourtakis, publisher of Parapolitika newspaper, and its director, Panayiotis Tzenos, following a lawsuit filed against them for libel and extortion by the defence minister and leader of the Independent Greeks Party (ANEL), Panos Kammenos, the news website SKAI reports.
Kourtakis said he voluntarily went to police headquarters after being informed about the lawsuit, while director Panagiotis Tzenos was arrested in his Athens office.
ANEL issued a statement stressing that the lawsuit was prompted by allegedly slanderous claims about Kammenos’s son, saying that he was an “anarchist” and involved in a terrorist group on their radio programme which aired on 9 January.
In July 2015, Kammenos gave Athens press union (ESIEA) a list of journalists who had allegedly received improper funding through advertising from the state health entity KEELPNO, which included the Parapolitika executives.
According to SKAI, Kammenos claims that the journalists made slanderous statements about his son in order to make him retract allegations that the Parapolitika executives were receiving funding.
The public prosecutor who investigated the lawsuit has since reportedly dropped charges of criminal extortion.
Greece’s main journalists’ union and opposition parties have expressed concern over the general tendency of police’s interventions to journalists’ offices.
“Journalism must be exercised according to specific rules, but also press freedom must be defended and protected,” the Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers writes in its statement.
Vladislav Ryazantcev, correspondent for the independent news agency Caucasian Knot, reported on Facebook that he was assaulted by five unknown individuals whose faces were covered by scarves.
According to Ryazantcev, one of them grabbed his hand and asked him to “follow him for a talk.” Right after that an additional four individuals came up and started to hit the journalist on the head.
Ryazantcev reported that bystanders then helped rescued him.
“I do not know what the attack is connected to,” he wrote on Facebook. He later filed a complaint to the police.
The day before on 9 January, Magomed Daudov, speaker of the Chechen parliament, published threats against editor-in-chief of the Caucasian Knot, Grigori Shvedov, on Instagram.
A TV crew working for TF1 channel was reportedly assaulted in Compiègne while trying to film a building set to be emptied of its inhabitants because of alleged high criminality linked to drug trafficking, Courrier Picard reported.
“We tried to film a story there this morning. Our crew was attacked and stoned by thugs who stole our camera in this unlawful zone. It was very violent,” TF1 presenter Jean-Pierre Pernaud said. The assault occurred in the Close des Roses neighbourhood.
One of the journalists told Courrier Picard that the channel would file a complaint.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
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]
11 Jan 17 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]This article is written by a human rights activist who has requested anonymity.
I am about to make a life changing move and leave Turkey. This decision did not come easy. I still do not feel very comfortable about leaving my family, friends and the struggle behind. However, this is a must-do move in order to keep my soul, spirit and mind intact.
I am an activist, a human rights defender, a dissident, and currently I feel like a lab rat trapped in a maze, trying to find the exit to freedom. And worse still, I can hear countless fellow mice doing the same! This is extremely disempowering.
In Turkey, we are losing all our legitimate grounds and means to scrutinise, criticise, oppose power and express our ideas and thoughts in the media, the streets, associations, social media….
There are almost no independent mainstream media left that dare write what is newsworthy if it touches the government or big business interests close to power. The outlets that do so face countless sanctions ranging from prosecution and arrest to total closure. Journalism was already under huge pressure but the failed 15 July coup provided a big opportunity to the government to further silence all opposition. As of today, there are 145 journalists in jail, 157 media outlets have been closed and approximately 9,000 journalists are jobless. Thousands of websites are either banned or blocked. If I cannot make my voice heard to influence public opinion, how can I be effective in my work to promote human rights, peace and justice?
Media is not the only medium that’s been hijacked; since 20 July, the government closed about 500 non-governmental organisations under emergency decrees. Some of these NGOs were very effective service organizations. Authorities confiscated all their equipment, bank accounts and documents — a violation of their clients’ right to privacy. And very recently, an investigation was initiated into four prominent human rights organisations — ok, listen to this — for reporting on human rights violations that occurred in cities that were under curfew. In other words, they are accused of their raison d’être!
The shrinking space for freedom
Social media was the only space left for us to communicate, inform and be informed. However, for a long while we are under attack for using this medium, too. Just a couple days ago, the deputy prime minister warned everyone to “behave on social media or face the consequences”. Actually, many have already faced it. There are hundreds of prosecutions with charges of terrorist propaganda and even more of insulting the president (based on Article 299 of the penal code, which became the new 301). Saying “I wouldn’t serve tea to the president” or “I don’t like the president” are now considered insulting.
The message is clear: Do not speak out, do not criticise, do not expose corruption, nepotism, abuse of power, lies or violations committed by the government. If you insist, you will be rendered jobless like thousands of journalists, academics, teachers and doctors, or you will be prosecuted and jailed.
We hear their message. We hear it again and again, every time a friend is put behind the bars, any time trolls target us on social media. We hear it when we are attacked by pepper gas and batons for protesting on the streets.
I know that this is an intimidation strategy. I also know that it will not deter me or my friends from doing what we do. Yet, the climate of fear dominating the country makes me feel trapped, cornered, inefficient and useless. I am at the verge of falling into a state of learned helplessness, if not depression.
I don’t want to self-censor what I am to say, yet I don’t want fall victim to their repressive policies just because of the non-violent things I say and do. Increasingly, I am turning into a lesser version of myself – less productive, less confident and losing faith.
It is true that the people of Turkey have never enjoyed a full democracy. Rights defenders and the opposition have always been targeted and criminalised as traitors, branded as terrorists and disloyal enemies for exposing the truth.
But for the first time in my life I feel so besieged and under threat. It is not just about the authoritarian regime, people find ways to bypass the restrictions and find other means to continue working. What slammed me to the ground and drained my hope and sapped my energy is the pure evil that has burgeoned in society. As the columnist Ahmet Insel quoted from Ibn al Muqaffa in his writing, “The worst time is when the ruler and the evil of the people are united.”
I couldn’t cope with it. I am choosing to retreat, only to come back stronger, wiser and more equipped.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1485774506870-edde10de-35f5-10″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
21 Dec 16 | Magazine, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored, Volume 45.04 Winter 2016
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” full_height=”yes” equal_height=”yes” css_animation=”none” css=”.vc_custom_1481548134696{background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Sevan-Nişanyan-1460×490.jpg?id=82526) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Linguist and newspaper columnist SEVAN NIŞANYAN has found himself locked up for 16 years after being subjected to a torrent of lawsuits. Researcher JOHN BUTLER managed to interview him for the winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_column_text]
Well-known linguist Sevan Nişanyan will not be eligible for parole in Turkey until 2024. Locked up in the overcrowded Turkish prison system, he has found his initial relatively short jail sentence for blasphemy getting ever longer as he has been subjected to a torrent of “spurious” lawsuits on minor building infringements related to a mathematics village he founded.
Nişanyan, who is 60, spoke exclusively to Index on Censorship. He said he was being kept in appalling conditions. Moved from prison to prison since being jailed in January 2014, he is now being held in Menemen Prison, a “massively overcrowded and brain- dead institution”.
He added: “About two thirds of our inmates were recently moved elsewhere and the remainder pushed ever more tightly into overpopulated wards to make room for the thousands arrested in the aftermath of the coup attempt.”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1481550218789{padding-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Nişanyan is adamant that his time has not been wasted. He has been working on the third edition of his Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language, which presently stands at over 1500 pages“” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:24|text_align:justify|color:%23dd3333″ google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css_animation=”fadeIn”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text el_class=”magazine-article”]
Nişanyan’s ordeal started in 2012 when he wrote a blog post about free speech arguing for the right to criticise the Prophet Mohammed. Through notes passed out of his high security prison via his lawyer, Nişanyan told Index what he believes happened next:
“Mr Erdoğan, the then-prime minister, believes in micromanaging the country. He was evidently incensed.
“I received a call from his office inquiring whether I stood by my, erm, ‘bold views’ and letting me know that there was much commotion ‘up here’ about the essay. The director of religious affairs, the top Islamic official of the land, emerged from a meeting with Erdoğan to denounce me as a ‘madman’ and ‘mentally deranged’ for insulting ‘our dearly beloved prophet’.
“A top dog of the governing party, who later became justice minister, went on air to assure us that throughout history, no ‘filthy attempt to besmirch the name of our holy prophet’ has ever been left unpunished. Groups of so- called ‘concerned citizens’ brought complaints of blasphemy against me in almost every one of our 81 provinces. Several indictments were made, and eventually I was convicted for a year and three months for ‘injuring the religious sensibilities of the public’.”
But what happened afterwards was even more sinister. He found himself, while in prison, facing eleven lawsuits relating to a village he was building with the mathematician and philanthropist Ali Nesin. Nişanyan has been involved for many years in a project to reconstruct in traditional style the village of Şirince, near Ephesus, on Turkey’s Western seaboard. It is now a heritage site and popular tourist destination. And nearby, he and Nesin have built a mathematics village which offers courses to mathematicians from all over Turkey and operates as a retreat for maths departments in other countries. They hope it will be the beginnings of a “free” university.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1481549931165{padding-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Jailing a non-Muslim, an Armenian at that, for speaking rather mildly against Islamic sensibilities… would be a first in the history of the Republic“” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:24|text_align:justify|color:%23dd3333″ google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css_animation=”fadeIn”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
It was this project the Turkish authorities decided to focus on. Nişanyan was given two years for building a one-room cottage in his garden without the correct licence, then two additional years for the same cottage. Nine more convictions for infringements of the building code followed, taking his total term up to 16 years and 7 months.
He, and many others, are convinced that this is a political case, because jail time for building code infringements is almost unheard of in Turkey. He believes the authorities have prosecuted him for these crimes because they do not want his case to cause an international stir.
“Jailing a non-Muslim, an Armenian at that, for speaking rather mildly against Islamic sensibilities… would be a first in the history of the Republic,” he told Index. “It might raise eye- brows both here and abroad.”
Despite everything, Nişanyan is adamant that his time has not been wasted. He has been working on the third edition of his Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language, which presently stands at over 1500 pages.
On entering prison, he signed away most of his property, including the copyright to his books, to the Nesin Foundation which runs the mathematics village he is so passionate about. Today the village has added a school of theatre. A philosophy village is the next project in the works.
“The idea is, of course, to develop all this into a sort of free and independent university,” he said. “I am sure the young people who have come together in Şirince for this quirky little utopia will have the energy and determination to go on in my absence.”
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
John Butler is a pseudonym
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”90772″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229908536530″][vc_custom_heading text=”Slapps and chills” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064229908536530|||”][vc_column_text]January 1999
Julian Petley’s roundup looks at the bullying of broadcasters and asks: are they being SLAPPed around?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89167″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422010388687″][vc_custom_heading text=”Survival in prison” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422010388687|||”][vc_column_text]December 2010
Detained writers suffer from violence, humiliation and loneliness – writing is their only solace.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”93991″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228408533768″][vc_custom_heading text=”Writers on trial” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064228408533768|||”][vc_column_text]October 1984
The trial outcome is uncertain, but it could mean putting Turkey’s leading intellectuals behind bars for 15 years.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Fashion Rules” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2016%2F12%2Ffashion-rules%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear.
In the issue: interviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”82377″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/12/fashion-rules/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
