TURKEY’S MORALPOLITIK: WORLD LEADER IN IMPRISONING JOURNALISTS
by Anna Mahjar-Barducci
Hudson New York
Sept 23 2011
Some analysts, under the impression that Turkey is severing relations
with Israel because Turkey claims that it is its duty is to champion
“human rights” in the Middle East, have written that Turkey is
abandoning “realpolitik” for “moralpolitik.”
According to a large number of academics and journalists in the
Western media, especially in Europe, Turkey has chosen to follow
a new ethical policy based on moral attitudes. This simplistic and
naïve interpretation of the Turkish agenda is becoming so that the
international community fails to denounce human rights abuses in
Turkey. In Italy, several media sources, such as the newspaper La
Stampa, wrote that Turkey is an example of democracy to be followed
in the Middle East, whereas the Washington-based Middle East Institute
wrote in an article published by Dr. Gonul Tol that Turkey is balancing
strategic interests with idealism.”Turkey views its conduct of foreign
policy as a balance between diplomacy and hard power to pursue its
interests, both moral and geopolitical,” Tol wrote..
In April, the International Press Institute released a document stating
that Turkey has more journalists in prison than any other country
in the world — including China and Iran. The report is based on a
document published by the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE) on Turkey’s freedom of press.
“Fifty-seven journalists are in prison in Turkey and the number of
ongoing trials that can result in imprisonment of journalists is
estimated to be from 700 to 1000,” said Dunja MijatoviÄ~G, the OSCE
Representative on Freedom of the Media, who commissioned the study
after receiving a number of reports about imprisoned journalists.
The OSCE’s report states that most imprisoned journalists are in
jail based on Articles 5 and 7 of the Anti-Terror Law of Turkey,
which relate to articles of the Criminal Code on terrorist offences
and organizations; or assisting members of, or making propaganda in
connection with, such organizations; as well as Article 314 of Türk
Ceza Kanunu,the Criminal Code of Turkey on establishing, commanding or
becoming a member of an armed organization with the aim of committing
certain offences.
In most cases, however, as reported by the OSCE terrorism is used
as a pretext to jail journalists from the opposition, who criticize
the government. The secular daily Radikal reported in April that
Aziz Ã~Vzer, the chief executive officer for the monthly culture and
literature magazine “Güney” (South), had been sentenced to 1.5 years
in prison because of a short story and a caricature he published that
were determined to constitute “making propaganda” for the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. As reported by the daily Hurriyet,
the sentence was not suspended. According to the OSCE’s report,
Adanir Bedri, editor in chief of a Kurdiosh publication, is tried
in relation to 38 books and various published articles. He stands
accused of “membership to the Kürdistan Ä°Å~_çi Partisi (PKK)
(Kurdistan Workers’ Party)” and “spreading propaganda for an illegal
organization.”, as he published declarations from PKK representatives
in his newspaper.
Still, according to the April OSCE’s report, the author Berktas Nevin
is convicted on charges of “propaganda for an illegal organization”.
The charges were based on her book entitled “Difficult places that
challenge the faith: Prison Cells”. The book describes the experience
of resistance in the prison where she was incarcerated during the
military coup in 1980. The Armenian website Keghart reports that
Berktas was convicted and sentenced under Article 7 of the Anti-Terror
Law (propaganda for an illegal organization). Keghart further reports
that her lawyer has demonstrated that, due to an administrative error
in calculating a sentence for other convictions, Berktas has already
spent almost 6 years too many in prison.
The OSCE accuses Turkey of silencing journalists with long, unjust
prison sentences and undemocratic pre-trial detention. As stated
in the OSCE’s report: “The longest conviction is 166 years and the
longest jail sentence sought for a journalist is 3,000 years. Many
journalists face double life sentences if convicted, some without
possibility for parole. Pre-trial detentions are also often very long.
Journalists are held in prison for up to three years before trial.
Courts do not tend to implement existing alternative judicial control
mechanisms instead of arrests. There is concern that arrests and
long pre-trial detentions without conviction are used as a form of
intimidation.”
Further, OSCE reports that Turkish journalists are often charged with
several offences, with one journalist facing 150 separate cases. Once
convicted, journalists are often jailed in F-type high security
prisons, where they have to serve their time with “the most dangerous
criminals.” The problem in Turkey is that journalists are not allowed
to do their jobs or report on sensitive issues; those who dare to do so
are considered criminals by the government. “Writing about sensitive
issues, including issues of terrorism or anti-government activities,
is often considered supporting those issues,” states the OSCE’s report.
Since the release of the OSCE’s report, the numbers of jailed
journalists has increased. Reporters Without Borders (RWB) is
increasingly concerned about the freedom of press in Turkey and
recently complained, especially about the way the Turkish authorities
continue to treat two of the country’s leading investigative
journalists, Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, held since March 3, and who
have just completed their sixth month in prison on trumped-up terrorism
charges. “These two journalists have already been detained without
any justification for six months and the trial has not even started,”
RWB said. “Each day they spend in prison is an outrage that sullies
the image of Turkish democracy. Although the judicial authorities keep
delaying the start of their trial, it is vital that they are released
conditionally at the first hearing. It will signal that the Turkish
courts are part of Turkish society’s move towards more democracy.”
Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener are both vocal critics of the AKP party. The
OSCE reports that Sik wrote a book that has not yet been published.
The manuscript is called “Ä°mamın Ordusu” (The Imam’s Army) and is
about the transformation of the police institution in Turkey and
the impact of the influential Islamic Gulen movement, lead by the
Pennsylvania-based Imam Fethullah Gulen, within this body. His home
in Istanbul and his office at Ä°stanbul Bilgi Universitesi have been
searched by police. Hard discs, pictures and CD’s have been seized by
police. RWB says that Not content with preventing its publication and
throwing the author Sik to jail, “the Turkish judicial authorities
searched the three locations where it was thought the draft copy
might be found and ordered anyone who might still be in possession
of it to hand it over to the authorities or face criminal charges”.
The OSCE reports that Nedim Sener instead wrote two books on the
murder of the Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, criticizing
the government of the lack of transparency in the investigation. He
is facing various charges in several cases. On March 3, 2011, police
searched his home and seized many materials, leading to his arrest,
allegedly in relation to “Ergenekon membership”. The Institute for
Free Press (IFP) awarded Sener with the title of World Press Freedom
Hero. The IFP writes that Sener his book uncovered the involvement of
Turkish security agencies in Dink’s killing outside of the Armenian
weekly Agos newspaper’s office in January 2007. His book led to
the filing of charges by several senior police and security service
officials.
RWB also stated that after three days in police custody, Sik and
Sener were transferred to prison on March 6 together other colleagues.
“Their arrests and the absurd charges that ensued triggered a wave
of protests in Turkey and abroad and became the symbol of both
the judicial system’s paranoid attitude towards the media and the
widespread use of pre-trial detention”, RWB claimed, adding that
Turkish journalists are victims of the government’s paranoia towards
media coverage: “The journalists are paying for their critical coverage
of an extremely sensitive subject, an alleged clandestine network of
secularist military officers and ultra-nationalists known Ergenekon
that is supposed to have plotted a coup against the pro-Islamic
AKP government. The arrest of alleged military conspirators in 2007
was initially hailed as a victory for democracy but the conspiracy
allegations have since been seen as pretext for a witch-hunt within
opposition sectors.”
The Turkish government denies limiting freedom of press, and claims
instead that the imprisonment of most of the convicts has nothing to
do with their journalistic activities. The Justice Ministry argued
that certain non-governmental organizations have published various
numbers about imprisoned journalists that were not based on “healthy
information.”
As mentioned by RWB in a long and detailed report on freedom of the
press in Turkey, however, reporting about certain topics is still
routinely punished by the Turkish courts. Time magazine reports that
“the government’s ‘you’re either with us or against us’ attitude has
created a palpable sense of repression in the press, particularly
since media and business interests are closely linked. The main
government-critical news group, Dogan, was slapped with 4.8 billion
lira ($3.05 billion) in tax fines in 2009 after a row with the
government over corruption allegations involving members of the AKP
party. [â~@¦] Reporters worry that they might lose their press card or
be banned from further meetings. Erdogan has personally sued dozens of
cartoonists and journalists for defamation. Under his administration,
thousands of websites have been shut down at times, including YouTube,
Vimeo and Blogger”.
The international community should immediately place media freedom
and human rights at the center of its relation with Turkey.
Arne König, President of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ),
said that there should be more information in the West on what it is
happening in Turkey. He expressed concern that Turkey is not as much
under pressure from the outside world a much as it used to be in the
past. In his opinion, the member states of the European Union have
been manipulative in terms of press freedom. König also said that the
imprisonment of journalists has shown a lack of democracy in Turkey,
and that there is a long way to go before democracy will be enacted.
This lack of democracy, however, is apparently the kind of
“moralpolitik” that the Turkish government seems proud to pursue in
its policy, and that the media seem content to let it entrench.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2447/turkey-imprisoning-journalists