Click on the dots for more information on the incidents.
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.
21 June, 2016 – Freelance journalist Kastus Zhukouski and cameraperson Alyaksei Atroshchankau who work for Poland-based Belsat TV, were detained in the town of Loyeu, in Homel region, Belsat channel reported.
The two media workers were filming a local brick factory for a story about poor economic conditions in Belarus.
“The police came, and brutally detained me and my colleague Alyaksei. We were taken to the police department, to the control room. They seized the equipment from our hands, broke it. I was knocked down to the floor, handcuffed, a man pressed a knee against my head. He called himself Deputy Chief Henadz Madzharski”, Kastus Zhukouski told BelaPAN.
The journalist also said he had high blood pressure. An ambulance was called and he was given an injection.
Zhukouski and Atroshchankau spent six hours at the police station. No police documents were drawn up despite threats to do so, the channel reported. It is unclear if the journalists have been charged with anything.
Szukouski and Atroshchankau filed requests to the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus asking them to investigate actions of the police.
20 June, 2016 – Belgian justice minister Koen Geens announced his intention to double the length of a prison sentencing for divulging confidential information, in cases where professional confidentially is breached, newspaper La Libre Belgique reported.
According to the Belgium General Association of Journalists, the move is meant to include it amongst the category of offenses which allow specific investigative methods such as phone-tapping or electronic tracing.
A second proposed law is also worrying journalists, which would enable the intelligence service to scrape the protection of a professional journalist if he/she is not considered a real journalist.
Gaspard Glanz, from independent website Taranis News, which covers clashes that take place during protests closely, and Alexis Kraland, were detained by police forces.
Ganz tweeted about the conditions, writing: “There’s 12 of us in total in the van. It’s 40 degrees. No water, no air”.
On Periscope, the people in the truck can be seen saying why they were arrested, generally because they were wearing protective material meant to protect them against tear gas.
22 June, 2016 – A new anti-terrorism law has come into effect on 22 June after it was ratified by the Polish President Andrzej Duda, wiadomosci.gazeta.pl. The law was successfully passed by two parliamentary chambers of the Sejm earlier this month.
The law gives Poland’s intelligence agency, the ABW (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego), the right to “order the blocking or demand that the electronic open source service administrator block access to information data”, thereby giving the agency the right to shut down online media outlets, including websites and television programmes, Kulisy24 reported.
Websites can be blocked for up to five days prior to obtaining permission by higher prosecution authorities, and up to 30 days if permission is granted, with the option to renew it for up to three months.
Authorisation for a temporary access ban can also now be granted by the minister of justice. The legislation does not grant power to the source administrator to appeal against such a decision.
Lawyer and expert on surveillance legislation, Prior Waglowski, told the website money.pl: “Blocking…has to occur under judicial supervision… which is not given here. These propositions are taken out of the blue”. He underlined that the definition of terrorism provided is very loose and is up to the discretion by effectively two persons.
Watchdog website Kulisy24criticised the legislation, writing that it is not known how blocking will be executed and that the ABW is not obliged to publish its blocking order.
The Polish NGO Fundacja Panoptykon started a petition against the law in late April and collected just short of 8,690 signatures by 20 June. Together with the NGO e-Państwo, it also published a protest letter addressed to the Polish president, which was shared by a number of media and NGOs, including the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights.
In a developing incident reported to Mapping Media Freedom on 18 May 2016 Turkish judicial authorities have opened an investigation against five journalists and trade unionists for participating in a solidarity campaign with the Kurdish daily newspaper Özgür Gündem.
The journalists include Ertugrul Mavioglu, Faruk Eren, Ayse Düzkan, Mustafa Sönmez and Melda Onur.
The Co-Editorship-in-Chief campaign was launched by Özgür Gündem daily on 3 May, 2016 for World Press Freedom Day (#WPFD) where up to 16 journalists participated.
Requests have been filed for the journalists and trade unionists to testify for articles that are being considered “terrorist propaganda” and an “incitement to crime” which were published whilst they participated in the solidarity campaign.
“This is another dark day for media freedom in Turkey,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “Erol Önderoglu has fought tirelessly to defend persecuted journalists for the past 20 years. He is a leader in this field because of his honesty and integrity, which are recognised the world over. It says a lot about the decline in media freedom in Turkey that he is now also being targeted.”
UPDATE: On 25 May, 2016 – Journalist Erol Önderoglu has been added to list of journalists being investigated for “terrorist propaganda” for participating in the solidarity campaign with Özgür Gündem, The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) reports. EFJ demands that all criminal charges be dropped against him and the other journalists involved in this campaign.
UPDATE: 20 June, 2016 – A prosecutor has issued a warrant for the pre-trial arrest of ad interim editor-in-chief Özgür Gündem Şebnem Korur Fincancı, Bianet journalist and RSF representative Erol Önderoğlu and author Ahmet Nesin.
I have known Erol Önderoğlu for ages. This gentle soul has been monitoring the ever-volatile state of Turkish journalism more regularly than anybody else. His memory, as the national representative of the Reporters Without Borders, has been a prime source of reference for what we ought to know about the state of media freedom and independence.
On 20 June, perhaps not so surprisingly, we all witnessed Erol being sent to pre-trial detention, taken out of the courtroom in Istanbul in handcuffs.
Charge? “Terrorist propaganda.” Why? Erol was subjected to a legal investigation together with two prominent intellectuals, author Ahmet Nesin, and Prof Şebnem Korur Fincanci – who is the chairwoman of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation – because they had joined a so-called solidarity vigil, as an “editor for a day”, at the pro-Kurdish Özgür Gündem daily, which has has been under immense pressure lately.
This vigil had assembled, since 3 May, more than 40 intellectuals, 37 of whom have now been probed for the same charges. One can now only imagine the magnitude of a crackdown underway if the courts copy-paste detention decisions to all of them, which is not that unlikely.
Journalism has, without the slightest doubt, become the most risky and endangered profession in Turkey. Journalism is essential to any democracy. It’s demise will mean the end of democracy.
Turkey is now a country — paradoxically a negotiating partner with the EU on membership — where journalism is criminalised, where its exercise equates to taking a walk on a legal, political and social minefield.
“May God bless the hands of all those who beat these so-called journalists” tweeted Sait Turgut, a top local figure of AKP in Midyat, where a bomb attack on 8 June by the PKK had claimed 5 lives and left more than 50 people wounded.
Most recently, Can Erzincan TV, a liberal-independent channel with tiny financial resources but a strong critical content, was told by the board of TurkSat that it will be dropped from the service due to “terrorist propaganda”. Why? Because some of the commentators, who are allowed to express their opinions, are perceived as affiliated with the Gülen Movement, which has been declared a terrorist organisation by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
It is commonplace for AKP officials from top down demonise journalists this way. Harrassment, censorship, criminal charges and arrests are now routine.
Detention of the three top human rights figures, the event in Midyat or the case of Can Erzincan TV are only snapshots of an ongoing oppression mainly aimed at exterminating the fourth estate as we know it. According to Mapping Media Freedom, there have been over 60 verified violations of press freedom since 1 January 2016.
The lethal cycle to our profession approaches its completion.
While journalists in Turkey – be they Turkish, Kurdish or foreign – feel less and less secure, the absence of truthful, accurate, critical reporting has become a norm. Covering stories such as the ”Panama Papers” leak — which includes hundreds of Turkish business people, many of whom have ties with the AKP government — or the emerging corruption case of Reza Zarrab — an Iranian businessman who was closely connected with the top echelons of the AKP — seems unthinkable due to dense self-censorship.
Demonisation of the Kurdish Political Movement and the restrictions in the south eastern region has made it an extreme challenge to report objectively on the tragic events unfolding in the mainly Kurdish provinces which have forced, according to Amnesty International, around 500,000 to leave their homes.
Journalism in Turkey now means being compromised in the newsrooms, facing jail sentences for reportage or commentary, living under constant threat of being fired, operating under threats and harassment. A noble profession has turned into a curse.
In the case of Turkey, fewer and fewer people are left with any doubt about the concentration of power. It’s in the hands of a single person who claims supremacy before all state institutions. The state of its media is now one without any editorial independence and diversity of thought.
President Erdoğan, copying like-minded leaders such as Fujimori, Chavez, Maduro, Aliyev and, especially, Putin, did actually much better than those.
His dismay with critical journalism surfaced fully from 2010 on, when he was left unchecked at the top of his party, alienating other founding fathers like Abdullah Gül, Ali Babacan and others who did not have an issue with a diverse press.
Soon it turned into contempt, hatred, grudge and revenge.
He obviously thought that a series of election victories gave him legitimacy to launch a full-scale power grab that necessitated capturing control of the large-scale media outlets.
His multi-layered media strategy began with Gezi Park protests in 2013 and fully exposed his autocratic intentions.
While his loyal media groups helped polarise the society, Erdoğan stiffly micro-managed the media moguls with a non-AKP background — whose existence depended on lucrative public contracts — to exert constant self-censorship in their news outlets, which due to their greed they willingly did.
This pattern proved to be successful. Newsrooms abandoned all critical content. What’s more, sackings and removals of dignified journalists peaked en masse, amounting now to approximately 4,000.
By the end of 2014, Erdoğan had conquered the bulk of the critical media.
Since 2015 there has been more drama. The attacks against the remaining part of the critical media escalated in three ways: intimidation, seizure and pressure of pro-Kurdish outlets.
Doğan group, the largest in the sector, was intimidated by pro-AKP vandalism last summer and brought to its knees by legal processes on alleged “organized crime” charges involving its boss.
As a result the journalism sector has had its teeth pulled out.
Meanwhile, police raided and seized the critical and influential Koza-Ipek and Zaman media groups, within the last 8 months, terminating some of its outlets, turning some others pro-government overnight and, after appointing trustees, firing more than 1,500 journalists.
Kurdish media, at the same time, became a prime target as the conflict grew and more and more Kurdish journalists found themselves in jail.
With up to 90% of a genetically modified media directly or indirectly under the control Erdoğan and in service of his drive for more power, decent journalism is left to a couple of minor TV channels and a handful newspapers with extremely low circulations.
With 32 journalists in prison and its fall in international press freedom indexes continuing to new all-time lows, Turkey’s public has been stripped of its right to know and cut off from its right to debate.
Journalism gagged means not only an end to the country’s democratic transition, but also all bridges of communication with its allies collapsing into darkness.
UPDATE: 30 June, Erol Onderoglu and Şebnem Korur have been released from prison.
Index on Censorship calls for the immediate and unconditional release of journalists Şebnem Korur Fincancı, Erol Önderoğlu and Ahmet Nesin, who were arrested by Turkish authorities on 20 June.
“These individuals have committed no crime. Their transgression was to exercise freedom of speech to show their support for a free and pluralistic media. It shows the depths to which Turkey’s authorities have sunk to silence any and all narratives that differ with the government’s,” Melody Patry, senior advocacy officer for Index, said.
In May, Turkish authorities began investigations for “terrorist propaganda” against journalists that participated in a solidarity campaign with the Kurdish daily newspaper Özgür Gündem. The campaign, which involved editors-in-chief, was launched on 3 May 2016 — World Press Freedom Day. On 25 May, Önderoglu – a representative for Reporters Without Borders and member of the governing council of international free expression group IFEX, as well as a correspondent for Bianet – was added to the list under investigation. Korur Fincancı is president of Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) and acting as editor-in-chief ad interim of Özgür Gündem. Nesin is a journalist and author.
Index reiterates its call for Turkey to review its terrorism legislation and to end the abusive practice of prosecuting journalists under anti-terror laws.
Press freedom in Turkey has rapidly declined in the last six months with over 60 verified incidents reported to Index’s project Mapping Media Freedom. Since 1 January 2016, three journalists have been killed, with attempts made on the lives of two others. Mapping Media Freedom has recorded 31 incidents of arrest and detention since the start of 2016.
Free Word in partnership with Index on Censorship brought together three major cultural figures from Hungary, Poland and Turkey to compare their stories and ask: is Europe just a place, or a set of values that are rapidly unravelling?
Europe was a bastion of hope for more than a million refugees last year. What brought them? A hunger for safety and security? Dreams of freedom? The draw of liberal democracy with its ideals of free expression, equal opportunity and persecution for none?
But look within our own continent and you will see the cracks. In Hungary, Victor Orban’s administration looks increasingly autocratic. Poland’s new conservative government is making changes to its public media that critics have said amount to a takeover. How can we support neighbours like Turkey in their fight to avoid authoritarianism if we can’t fly the banner for freedom at home?
Agnes Heller, Elif Shafak and Adam Zagajewski Photos: Sean Gallagher/Index on Censorship
Poland, Hungary and Turkey come up on Index’s radar far too often at the moment, says @DBetzH, introducing tonight’s panelists #fweurope
— Index on Censorship (@IndexCensorship) June 15, 2016
In Turkey people cite Singapore as example of having economic success without democracy. Says @Elif_Safak#fweurope
— Index on Censorship (@IndexCensorship) June 15, 2016
‘Liberal democracy is majority decision but not majority rule.’ #AgnesHeller#FWEurope
Agnes Heller was born in 1929 and is one of the leading thinkers to come out of the tradition of critical theory. Her broad intellectual range and publications include ethics, philosophical anthropology, political philosophy and a theory of modernity and its culture. Hungarian by birth, she was one of the best-known dissident Marxists in central Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. She has held visiting lectureships all over the world and has been the Hannah Arendt Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York. She now lives in Budapest and is one of the most popular and outspoken critics of the current regime.
Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. She is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. Critics have named her as “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Turkish and world literature”. Her books have been published in more than 40 countries and she was awarded the honorary distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Elif has published thirteen books, nine of which are novels. She writes fiction in both Turkish and English. Elif blends Western and Eastern traditions of storytelling, bringing out the myriad stories of women, minorities, immigrants, subcultures, youth and global souls. Her work draws on diverse cultures and literary traditions, as well as a deep interest in history, philosophy, Sufism, oral culture, and cultural politics. Elif’s writing breaks down categories, clichés, and cultural ghettoes. She also has a keen eye for black humour.
Adam Zagajewski is an award-winning poet, novelist, translator and essayist. Born in Lwow in 1945, he first became well-known as one of the leading poets of the Generation of ‘68’ or the Polish New Wave (Nowa Fala). His poems and essays have been translated into many languages. Among his honors and awards are a fellowship from the Berliner Kunstlerprogramm, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize, a Prix de la Liberté, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Since 1988, he has served as visiting associate professor of English in the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Houston. In 2010, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Adam is currently co-editor of Zeszyty Literackie (Literary Review). He lives in Krakow.
