08 Mar 16 | Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
Thousands gather in solidarity outside Zaman offices in Istanbul on 5 March 2016. Credit: photo story / Shutterstock
This column was originally submitted to Today’s Zaman, but was rejected by the new management. Yavuz Baydar was a columnist for Today’s Zaman since its launch on 15 January 2007
Following the presidential attacks on Turkey’s top judicial body, the Constitutional Court, stemming from its pro-freedom ruling over the case of Can Dündar and Erdem Gül of Cumhuriyet, and the unplugging two opposition channels from Türksat satellite, the dramatic seizure of Zaman and this newspaper, Today’s Zaman, both highly influential in their own ways, is one of the final nails in the coffin of journalism in Turkey.
Any other attempt to blur the discussion, or to divert the attention elsewhere, as “none of this has to do with journalism” is sheer nonsense, serving the government’s interests.
Neither is there any doubt that there is absolutely no difference at all in the huge mess of media crackdown in Turkey, in essence, say, between Cumhuriyet and Zaman, or Kurdish IMC-TV or right-wing/nationalist Bengü TV.
“Erdogan’s crusade is not just against a specific group or ideology. Whoever dares to criticise him is a potential target. After the fall of the largest critical newspaper Zaman, it is now even harder to speak about media freedom in Turkey,” wrote my esteemed colleague, Selçuk Gültaşlı, a veteran correspondent with Today’s Zaman, in Brussels.
As with much else directed at outlets and individuals in various, often opposing parts of the Turkish media, the legal basis for the seizure is, to say the least, is not “convincing”.
As the editorial by the Platform for Independent Journalism, P24 pointed out yesterday:
“It is no secret that Zaman demonstrated fidelity to the movement associated with the exiled cleric, Fethullah Gülen. The paper once supported the rise of AKP but in recent years has been a bitter critic. The legal document, which placed Zaman’s parent company into court-appointed administration, relies on the testimony of an anonymous witness who maintains that the editorial policy was dictated by what it calls the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETÖ in its Turkish acronym). This, in turn, is guilty of conspiring with the outlawed PKK. It is enough to point out that the existence of FETÖ is at best hearsay, at worst the invention of subeditors in the pro-government press – never mind that Zaman itself once took a more hawkish line towards the PKK than the government itself.”
There seems to be absolutely no doubt, either, what the most serious and most respected international news outlets see behind the attempts to completely silence what remains of critical media segments of Turkey, regardless of their political inclinations and editorial lines.
“If the Zaman affair were the only example of the mistreatment of the media in Turkey, it might be seen as part of the murky struggle between the AKP and Hizmet,” The Guardian wrote in its editorial. “But that is far from the position. Journalists of every kind are routinely intimidated, threatened with legal action and detained. Publications and broadcasting organisations have been put under extreme pressure to sack columnists whom the government dislikes. Some have been bought out by businessmen close to the government.”
“The editor-in-chief of the opposition paper Cumhuriyet and its Ankara bureau chief were charged with espionage after the paper printed a story suggesting that the government was conniving at the supply of arms to extremist rebels in Syria. When the country’s highest court ordered their release pending trial, Mr Erdoğan, with typical disregard for the legal system, announced: “I do not abide by the decision or respect it.”
“… Mr Erdoğan’s personality is not suited to any kind of adversity. The increasingly frequent use of a law making it an offence to insult the president shows him at his most thin-skinned…. Whether in dealing with the media or the courts, or even with the public, Mr Erdoğan’s message seems to be the same: there will be consequences if you cross me. This is not mature politics and it is certainly not democratic.”
Not much more to add.
The seizure of Zaman and TZ, along with the preceding series of attacks on the press from all possible fronts, has left Turkish journalism in a wreck. A key profession is now on its death-bed, mourned desperately by its courageous devotees. The “civilized world” just watches, as the dreams of a Turkish democracy passes away along with it.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
07 Mar 16 | Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey
On Friday night, security forces stormed Zaman, the widest-circulating Turkish newspaper. Though many Turkish news outlets studiously avoided covering the raids, the screens of international news channels were full of images of Turkish police using tear gas and water cannon against protestors trying to protect their paper. Particularly striking were the injuries to young women wearing Islamic headgear, the very segment of the community, which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) once vowed to defend.
The seizure of a news organisation by placing it into court-appointed administration is not trivial. The Zaman group employs some two thousand people, runs a nationwide network of correspondents and puts out an English language daily, Today’s Zaman, which has an international following on the web. It is impossible to imagine a court in any country with the slightest pretension of being democratic acting with such impunity.
The final headline of the independent version of Zaman was that there could be no legal basis for the takeover. Indeed, Article 30 of the Turkish Constitution reads: “A printing house and its annexes, duly established as a press enterprise under law, and press equipment shall not be seized, confiscated, or barred from operation on the grounds of having been used in a crime.” (As amended on May 7, 2004; Act No. 5170)”
It is no secret that Zaman demonstrated fidelity to the movement associated with the exiled cleric, Fethullah Gülen. The paper once supported the rise of AKP but in recent years has been a bitter critic. The legal document, which placed Zaman’s parent company into court-appointed administration, relies on the testimony of an anonymous witness who maintains that the editorial policy was dictated by what it calls the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETÖ in its Turkish acronym). This in turn is guilty of conspiring with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It is enough to point out that the existence of FETÖ is at best hearsay, at worst the invention of subeditors in the pro-government press – never mind that Zaman itself once took a more hawkish line towards the PKK than the government itself.
According to reports reaching P24, the prosecutor struggled to find a court which would accede to his request. The Zaman building is in the Bakırköy province of Istanbul and comes under its jurisdiction. However, the request in the Bakırköy court was refused. Finally another, more friendly court acceded to the prosecutor’s demand, even though it is dubious whether it had the competence to do so.
The paper may not be guilty of treason but is has been guilty of apostasy – of having turned its back on AKP and President Tayyip Erdoğan in particular. Since then the two have been in mortal combat. Loyalists to the Gülen movement and the Zaman group in particular pursued corruption allegations against leading government officials in December 2013.
By forcing Zaman’s takeover the government lays itself open to universal condemnation. Turkey, once a proud EU applicant, now plumbs the lower depths of global rankings of transparency and free expression. Sadder still, this does not seem to trouble it a jot.
“The timing is a slap in the face,” according to a diplomat quoted in The Financial Times. “The seizure came during a visit to Istanbul by Donald Tusk, the European Council president, and two days before Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is to see Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Turkish premier,” the paper points out. Turkey now calibrates its place in the world not as a democratic standard bearer in a troubled part of the globe but as a buffer zone between Fortress Europe and a tide of Syrian refugees. This, it believes, gives it licence to get away with the murder of a newspaper.
In Turkey all eyes, government and opposition, are on the EU to see if Brussels is prepared to put expediency above principle and if European pubic opinion is prepared to see Ankara give up all pretence of democratic governance in exchange for grudging cooperation on Syria.
It is not just the timing of the EU summit, which is significant. The Constitutional Court recently gave the presidential office a swift kick in the shins with the release from pre-trial detention of the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper along with his Ankara bureau chief. The high court ruled that the charges against them – that printing stories in a newspaper could correspond to treason – were essentially absurd. Since then, newspapers and ministers loyal to the president have been braying for the judges’ blood. The president himself has said he would neither respect nor abide by the high court’s decision and now appears even more determined to draft a new constitution which would allow him to do exactly that.
Not everyone in AKP supports this autocratic trend. There is a small wave of discontent from the old guard who believe a constitution that concentrates even greater powers in presidential hands is a dangerous step. These homegrown dissidents took quiet satisfaction in the court’s defence of Cumhuriyet. So one can see the raid against Zaman as the president re-asserting his authority against these pockets of resistance to one-man rule.
Turkey’s 1982 Constitution was prepared under conditions of martial law. It attempted to dictate a society in which the rights of citizen were subservient to the needs of the state. This rendered it anachronistic before the ink on the Official Gazette was dry. It has constantly been rewritten and there have been consistent demands that it be replaced.
Yet no one, not even in their wildest babblings, ever claimed the current Constitution was insufficiently authoritarian, or that it ceded too little power to the arbitrary whim of government, or that it failed to enshrine the Machiavellian principle that “might makes right”.
No one, that is, until now. As the ink on the printing presses of Turkey’s independent media run dry so too do hopes for the country’s future.
See also:
Statement: Index condemns seizure of Zaman
Sign our petition: End Turkey’s crackdown on press freedom
Letter: Writers and artists condemn seizure of Zaman news group
Reaction: Turkish court orders seizure of Zaman news group
Originally posted on Platform 24.
04 Mar 16 | Campaigns, mobile, Statements, Turkey, Turkey Statements
Index has joined with writers, journalists and artists around the world to condemn the seizure of Turkish independent media group, Zaman, and to sign the following:
“Today Turkey seized one of the country’s leading newspapers, Zaman. In so doing, Turkey has confirmed that it is no longer committed to a free press, which is the bedrock of any democratic society.
We, the undersigned, ask the court to reverse its decision to seize Zaman and urge the international community to speak out against Turkey’s repeated attempts to stifle a free and independent media.”
—
Index de, dünyanın dört bir yanında olan yazarlara, gazetecilere ve sanatçılara katılarak Türkeyenin bağımsız medya grubuna devletin el koymasını kınıyor ve asağıdakini imzalayın:
“Bugün Türkiye devleti, ülkenin önde gelen gazetelerinden biri olan Zaman gazetesine el koydu. Bunu yapmasi ile, Türkiye özgür basına artık bağlı olmadığını doğruladı, oysa özgür basın bütün demokratik toplumların temelidir”.
Biz, altında imzasi bulunan kişiler, mahkemeden Zaman gazetesine kayyum atanması kararını geri çekmesini talep ediyor ve Uluslararasi toplumdan Türkiye devletinin defalarca özgür ve bağımsız medya’yı bastırmaya çalışmasına karşı açıkca konuşmasını önemle tavsiye ediyoruz.
—
Signed
All the staff at Index on Censorship
David Aaronovitch, journalist and chair of Index on Censorship
Ricardo Gutierrez, general secretary, European Federation of Journalists
Christophe Deloire, executive director, Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Barbara Trionfi, executive director, International Press Institute
Rafael Marques de Morais, investigative journalist, MakaAngola.org
Tim Stanley, Telegraph columnist
Neil Mackay, editor, Sunday Herald, Glasgow
Molly Crabapple, artist and author
Richard Sambrook, professor of journalism, Cardiff University
Tom Holland, historian and author
Matthew Parris, writer and broadcaster
Amberin Zaman, journalist
Peter Kellner, author and writer
James Ball, special correspondent, Buzzfeed
Rupert Myers, political correspondent, GQ
Peter Pomeranzev, journalist and author
Peter Oborne, journalist
Philip Pullman, author
Jacob Mchangama, executive director, Justitia
Tamas Bodoky, editor-in-chief, atlatszo.hu
Kevin Maguire, associate editor, The Mirror
Ariel Dorfman, playwright
Mary Fitzgerald, editor in chief, OpenDemocracy.net
Catherine Mayer, journalist and author
Karin Deutsch Karlekar, Ph.D.
Ian Birrell, journalist and co-founder of Africa Express
Anthony Barnett, founder, openDemocracy
Tony Gallagher, editor-in-chief, The Sun
Maria Polachowska, journalist
Nick Dawes, chief content and editorial officer, Hindustan Times
tOad, cartoonist
Dave Brown, political cartoonist, The Independent
Sir Stephen Sedley, QC
Raymond Louw, journalist
Samm Farai Monro, comedian, writer and producer
Paul Dacre, editor, Daily Mail
Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
Add your support on the petition at Change.org
04 Mar 16 | mobile, News and features, Turkey
Prague, Czech Republic. 4th February 2013 — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures during a press conference
The seizure of Turkey’s biggest opposition newspaper is the latest move against press freedom in the country. Since the election of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2014, the increasingly autocratic politician has waged an ongoing war with voices critical of his government.
Editors and journalists have been targeted against a backdrop of regional conflict and a reignited battle with the country’s Kurdish minority. According to Turkey’s justice minister as many as 1,845 cases have been opened against people accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since he came to office in 2014. Journalists, celebrities and even children have faced charges.
Condemnation of the move against Zaman has been swift.
“With this move, Turkey has hit a new low for media freedom,” said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “We now need the international community to help pull it back from the brink by encouraging governments to speak out publicly against these actions instead of turning a blind eye to President Erdogan’s creeping authoritarianism.”
Writers, journalists and artists all told Index of their concerns about Turkey’s future.
Journalist Fredericke Geerdink, who was arrested and deported from Turkey for reporting on the conflict with the Kurds, said “it’s no surprise at all that Zaman was taken over by the government. After all, the government’s papers hinted on it weeks ago already. It was not a matter of if, but when and how Zaman would be silenced, and the affiliated Cihan news agency with it. But let’s not pretend that this is the day democracy in Turkey was carried to its grave. The press in Turkey has never been free. President Erdogan is only taking the poor press freedom situation in Turkey to new, extreme levels by using existing structures in the state system. The end of his reign, which will inevitably come, will not be enough to save the media in Turkey. Both the laws restricting press freedom and the ownership structures in the media should be tackled. For this, it is crucial that journalists in Turkey stand together, despite the polarization in society that hinders solidarity among journalists as well.”
Historian and author Tom Holland said, “that the rich and argumentative journalistic culture of Turkey should come to this. The free airing of opinions is a mark, not of Turkish weakness, but of Turkish strength”.
Neil Mackay, novelist and editor of the Sunday Herald in Scotland said “the actions of the Turkish government are a chilling attack on freedom of speech which all journalists and writers across the globe should oppose. No country which aspires to democracy can operate without a truly free press. I call on the Turkish government to overturn their decision immediately, and allow the newspaper Zaman, and its staff and editors, to report events freely and without government control.”
Cardiff University professor of journalism Richard Sambrook said “independence of media from government control is internationally recognised as essential for a mature, healthy democracy – and is also essential for economic and social development. I’d urge the Turkish authorities to reconsider this regressive move”.
Deputy managing editor London Evening Standard Will Gore said the “move by Turkish authorities to place the Zaman newspaper group under the management of trustees is a deeply worrying development in the government’s ongoing crackdown on media freedom in Turkey. Not only does it imperil free speech but strikes at the heart of one of the fundamental tenets of democracy. Journalists around the world should raise their voices in protest”.
Artist and writer Molly Crabapple said: “The Turkish government’s takeover of Zaman is only one of their recent, frightening moves to curtail the already highly restricted freedoms of journalists working in Turkey. These include the trial of Cumhurriyat editors, the arrests of journalists working for the Kurdish leftist news site Jiyan, the three-month long detention of VICE News producer Mohammed Rasool, the detention of Syrian photojournalist Rami Jarrah, expulsions of foreign journalists, and the near complete press blackout in Eastern Turkey. Writers and journalists must call on the Turkish government to respect freedom of speech and press.”
Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley called the move “unconstitutional, troubling and part of a pattern of making life harder for the opposition. Nobody would deny that Turkey faces serious security challenges. But a free press is essential to democracy, and the world needs a democratic Turkey now more than ever”.
The European Federation of Journalists said: “The European Union cannot remain silent to the political seizure of Zaman newspaper, Today’s Zaman daily and Cihan news agency. The appointment of trustees by the judicial system was actually foreseen to save dying private companies and cannot be used to silence critical media outlets or to attack social rights of media workers”.
Amnesty International accused the Erdogan government of “steamrolling over human rights” and warned that “s free and independent media, together with the rule of law and independent judiciary, are the cornerstones of internationally guaranteed freedoms which are the right of everyone in Turkey”.
The decision by a court to appoint administrators to run Zaman was preceded by last week’s move by Turksat to stop carrying independent broadcaster IMC TV’s signal, which Index condemned. In October 2015, Koza İpek Holding, and the five media outlets it owned, were put into administration by a court after a demand by the Ankara prosecutor’s office.
The seizure of Zaman, a news organisation aligned with the Gulen movement, is the latest move in a campaign of pressure against the newspaper. On 14 December 2014, police arrested senior journalists and media executives associated with the Gulen movement on terrorism-related changes. Among the arrestees was Ekrem Dumanli, editor-in-chief of Zaman. When the police raided the paper’s offices they were greeted by protesters tipped off in advance. Dumali surrendered to the police later that day. He and other detainees were ordered released on 19 December for lack of evidence.
At the time, the US State Department cautioned Turkey not to violate its “own democratic foundations” while drawing attention to raids against media outlets “openly critical of the current Turkish government.” EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said that the arrests went “against European values” and “are incompatible with the freedom of media, which is a core principle of democracy”.
In February, Index on Censorship welcomed the release of journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that their rights had been violated by their arrest. Index strongly reiterates its call for Turkish authorities to drop all charges against the pair.
Dündar, the editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, and his Ankara bureau chief, Gül, had been held since the evening of 26 November. They are charged with spying and terrorism because last May they published evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria. They are currently awaiting trial.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey had 14 journalists in jail at the end of 2015. There have been 17 journalists arrested or detained in the country in 2016, according to verified incidents reported to Index’s project Mapping Media Freedom.
Add your support on the petition to end Turkey’s crackdown on press freedom at Change.org
