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The International Herald Tribune
May 6, 2011 Friday
Turkey's muzzled muckrakers
BY ANDREW FINKEL
ISTANBUL
Turkey holds a record number of journalists behind bars. But the most
effective censor in Turkey today is the press itself.
Imagine if back in the days of Watergate, Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein had been put on trial for being part of the very conspiracy
they were trying to uncover. Then suppose a large section of the
Washington press corps proceeded to pat federal prosecutors on the
back for a job well done.
Such is the life of a journalist in today's Turkey - a world in which
the justice system punishes the innocent while the Fourth Estate turns
a blind eye. Turkey now holds the dubious record for being the country
with the most imprisoned journalists - 57 according to a report by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. There are as many
as 1,000 other cases pending against journalists, many of whose only
crime was rigorous reporting.
Yet Turkey is also Europe's fastest growing economy, a candidate
country for membership in the European Union, and a nation publicly
committed to rooting out the antidemocratic and militaristic forces
that have marred its recent past. Turkey should be a beacon to its
fellow Muslim-majority nations in North Africa and the Middle East
trying throw off the yoke of authoritarianism. But it cannot set an
example so long as its own government refuses to tolerate criticism
and a cowed media looks the other way.
Turkey has countless capable reporters and photographers eager to do
their jobs. For years, these journalists treated the occasional
encounter with the country's antediluvian penal code as a professional
rite of passage. I myself stood in the dock more than 10 years ago,
charged with ''insulting the army'' in my column for a
Turkish-language paper. I was eventually fired after the chiefs of
staff - upset about my reporting on the Kurdish issue, pressured my
editors to give me the boot.
But state repression is not the only problem; the jelly-like backbone
of Turkey's Fourth Estate is also to blame. Sadly, the most effective
censor in Turkey today is the press itself. To adopt a stance critical
of current policies is to position oneself in opposition to the
government - and editors only do so as a calculated risk. Columns
exposing corruption or criticizing the government's sprawl-inducing
environmental policies are simply spiked.
When Turkish newspapers try to speak their mind, they often discover
their advertisers dropping out, explaining apologetically that they
have ''come under pressure.''
Some of the journalists currently behind bars have been charged in
connection with a long-running conspiracy trial intended to dismantle
what state prosecutors describe as a well-organized network -
codenamed Ergenekon - that intended to provoke a military coup. Others
are charged with defying onerous reporting restrictions on court
proceedings, including the Ergenekon trial itself.
Most of the Ergenekon suspects are serving or retired military
officers charged with plotting or carrying out violent acts in order
to turn public opinion against the governing AK Party, which has its
roots in an Islamic movement.
But recently, prosecutors ordered the detention of two respected
journalists, Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, who were once supporters of
the Ergenekon trial.
Sener's reporting revealed that the police had stopped short of
finding those really responsible for the murder in 2007 of the
Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink because the trail might
have led back to the police themselves. Sik's unpublished manuscript,
which the police tried and failed to ban before it began freely
circulating on the Internet, pointed a finger at a prominent religious
group known as the Gülen movement. Sik's book alleged that the group's
members, who have close ties with the AK Party, had penetrated the
police force.
Last month, in my regular column for an English-language edition of
the daily Zaman - which is affiliated with the Gülen movement - I
argued that the government's fight against antidemocratic forces was
taking a decidedly undemocratic turn.
Though I am not a member of the Gulen movement, I believed that Zaman,
like the Christian Science Monitor in the United States, could provide
a platform for differing points of view. So I argued the obvious, that
as a newspaper we had an obligation to defend Sik's freedom of
expression in order to protect our own integrity. The article cost me
my job.
My former editor published a column justifying my dismissal, claiming
that I had fallen prey to ''strong and dark propaganda.'' I am not the
only one: Cuneyt Ulsever of Zaman's rival Hurriyet had his column axed
after being unofficially censored for months by a colleague who
demanded that he revise passages the government might not like.
So this week, as we mark World Press Freedom Day, let us hope that
those journalists languishing in Turkish prisons will be freed until
the courts prove them guilty - and that their colleagues on the
outside throw off their shackles to engage in proper journalism.
From: A. Papazian
May 6, 2011 Friday
Turkey's muzzled muckrakers
BY ANDREW FINKEL
ISTANBUL
Turkey holds a record number of journalists behind bars. But the most
effective censor in Turkey today is the press itself.
Imagine if back in the days of Watergate, Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein had been put on trial for being part of the very conspiracy
they were trying to uncover. Then suppose a large section of the
Washington press corps proceeded to pat federal prosecutors on the
back for a job well done.
Such is the life of a journalist in today's Turkey - a world in which
the justice system punishes the innocent while the Fourth Estate turns
a blind eye. Turkey now holds the dubious record for being the country
with the most imprisoned journalists - 57 according to a report by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. There are as many
as 1,000 other cases pending against journalists, many of whose only
crime was rigorous reporting.
Yet Turkey is also Europe's fastest growing economy, a candidate
country for membership in the European Union, and a nation publicly
committed to rooting out the antidemocratic and militaristic forces
that have marred its recent past. Turkey should be a beacon to its
fellow Muslim-majority nations in North Africa and the Middle East
trying throw off the yoke of authoritarianism. But it cannot set an
example so long as its own government refuses to tolerate criticism
and a cowed media looks the other way.
Turkey has countless capable reporters and photographers eager to do
their jobs. For years, these journalists treated the occasional
encounter with the country's antediluvian penal code as a professional
rite of passage. I myself stood in the dock more than 10 years ago,
charged with ''insulting the army'' in my column for a
Turkish-language paper. I was eventually fired after the chiefs of
staff - upset about my reporting on the Kurdish issue, pressured my
editors to give me the boot.
But state repression is not the only problem; the jelly-like backbone
of Turkey's Fourth Estate is also to blame. Sadly, the most effective
censor in Turkey today is the press itself. To adopt a stance critical
of current policies is to position oneself in opposition to the
government - and editors only do so as a calculated risk. Columns
exposing corruption or criticizing the government's sprawl-inducing
environmental policies are simply spiked.
When Turkish newspapers try to speak their mind, they often discover
their advertisers dropping out, explaining apologetically that they
have ''come under pressure.''
Some of the journalists currently behind bars have been charged in
connection with a long-running conspiracy trial intended to dismantle
what state prosecutors describe as a well-organized network -
codenamed Ergenekon - that intended to provoke a military coup. Others
are charged with defying onerous reporting restrictions on court
proceedings, including the Ergenekon trial itself.
Most of the Ergenekon suspects are serving or retired military
officers charged with plotting or carrying out violent acts in order
to turn public opinion against the governing AK Party, which has its
roots in an Islamic movement.
But recently, prosecutors ordered the detention of two respected
journalists, Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, who were once supporters of
the Ergenekon trial.
Sener's reporting revealed that the police had stopped short of
finding those really responsible for the murder in 2007 of the
Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink because the trail might
have led back to the police themselves. Sik's unpublished manuscript,
which the police tried and failed to ban before it began freely
circulating on the Internet, pointed a finger at a prominent religious
group known as the Gülen movement. Sik's book alleged that the group's
members, who have close ties with the AK Party, had penetrated the
police force.
Last month, in my regular column for an English-language edition of
the daily Zaman - which is affiliated with the Gülen movement - I
argued that the government's fight against antidemocratic forces was
taking a decidedly undemocratic turn.
Though I am not a member of the Gulen movement, I believed that Zaman,
like the Christian Science Monitor in the United States, could provide
a platform for differing points of view. So I argued the obvious, that
as a newspaper we had an obligation to defend Sik's freedom of
expression in order to protect our own integrity. The article cost me
my job.
My former editor published a column justifying my dismissal, claiming
that I had fallen prey to ''strong and dark propaganda.'' I am not the
only one: Cuneyt Ulsever of Zaman's rival Hurriyet had his column axed
after being unofficially censored for months by a colleague who
demanded that he revise passages the government might not like.
So this week, as we mark World Press Freedom Day, let us hope that
those journalists languishing in Turkish prisons will be freed until
the courts prove them guilty - and that their colleagues on the
outside throw off their shackles to engage in proper journalism.
From: A. Papazian