13 Feb 2014 | India, News and features, Politics and Society
The Indian judiciary, with its prickly ego and halo of righteousness, has always wielded the sword of “contempt” in a swashbuckling manner.
In 1995, the movie Gentleman had some scenes in which judges were shown as being subservient to politicians, and susceptible to bribery. The filmmaker had two options- delete those “offending” scenes, or face prison for contempt of court. Needless to say, he settled for the former. Then in 2001, a fortnightly magazine carried out a performance evaluation of some judges of the Delhi High Court, and published a Report Card, grading them on integrity and competence. The court saw red at this “scandalising”, and slammed a sentence for conviction. Of course, the court praised itself: the judiciary was the “messiah” which protected the press and media from state interference. Meanwhile, when it comes to allegations of personal misdemeanour and malfeasance by judges, nobody needs to even petition the court. It swoops down on its own and muzzles the press.
However, this imperiousness pales in comparison to the Delhi High Court’s award of a gag order in the case of Justice Swatanter Kumar, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, accused of sexually harassing one of his female interns. The 16 January order is nothing less than a generous reward to a SLAPP suit, and worse, it also reveals a manifest bias in favour of the plaintiff, almost as if there was a concerted effort to stifle accountability.
On 30 November 2013, a former intern filed a complaint of sexual harassment against the judge, and when the Supreme Court declined to intervene, on 10 January, she took recourse to a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) before the same court. Coming right on the heels of another similar case, it made to all the front pages and television channels. Though there were some headlines which could have been phrased better, not a single paper or channel even remotely speculated on the veracity of the allegations. All they did was quote from the complainant’s petition and disclose the name of the judge. On 14 January, a phalanx of legal eagles threw their lot in with the accused judge and made a beeline for the Delhi High Court. Their vociferous assertion was tha newspapers, television channels, and the intern had colluded to tarnish the reputation of an upright judge by leveling malicious and scurrilous charges.
Two questions hit us at this juncture. One: when the petition was pending before the Supreme Court, why would the plaintiffs rush to the Delhi High Court, unless of course, forum shopping was their objective ? Two: if their beef was with the allegedly defamatory reportage, why would they also sue the intern?
Parsing the order granting an interim injunction might hint at some answers. The issue before the court was a simple one – whether the defendant newspaper and television channels’ actions amounted to trial by media and resulted in adverse publicity against the accused judge. (Un)surpringly, Justice Manmohan Singh starts by praising the judge’s sterling record on the Bench, and arrogates to itself the right to decide whether there was a smidgen of truth in the allegations. He also holds forth on the need for a statute of limitations in cases of sexual harassment. Then he cites a Supreme Court judgement which had justified prior restraint on reportage and in one fell swoop imposes a blanket ban on reporting of the case. This ban’s scope is scary- besides media houses, “any other person, entity, in print or electronic media or via internet or otherwise” were also drawn in.
Effectively, it means that no one, not even a person or a blogger not connected with the case, could write, or even tweet anything about it. When in most jurisdictions bloggers are being granted the same protection as journalists, could there be a more regressive step?
Legally India, a web portal had used a heavily pixelated image of the judge, so as to eliminate any identifying marks and carried a report totally in accordance with the court’s injunction. Despite that, the fire-and-brimstone emails it received from the plaintiff’s solicitors leave no room for doubt- that intimidating into silence is the only objective. The plaintive plea about irreparable damage to reputation is only a chimera.
A free press is indispensable for speaking truth to power, even the vast powers of the judiciary. Moreover, the Constitution of India makes it incumbent upon the judiciary to protect the press so that accountability and rule of law do not remain mere shibboleths. And when this same august institution clearly appears to champions SLAPP suits, it is indeed a mockery of the rule of law, as a livid Editors Guild said without pulling any punches.
This article was published on 13 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Feb 2014 | Iraq, News and features, Politics and Society
Al-sabah al jadeed’s caricature of Ayatollah Khamenei (Image RFE/RL)
Independent Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed has survived numerous attempts to destroy it over its 10 year existence. But on 10 February, the newspaper’s Baghdad office was bombed and now its future is in doubt. The daily may need to find a new office, employees are fleeing, and its website is facing one DoS attack after another.
Windows, furniture and equipment were damaged when a bomb went in front of the building at 4.30 am. Later that morning another bomb exploded not far from the newspaper, while an unexploded heavy C4 plastic explosive device was found inside the premises and dismantled by police. No one was injured or killed, as the office was empty – but some neighbours are suggesting that the newspaper should move.
A few hours later that same day a militia-like group entered the building. “They came threatening us in broad daylight, so to speak,” says Ismael Zayer, editor in chief. The group escaped after employees managed to warn the police.
The bomb attacks followed a social media campaign to demand the closure of the newspaper after it published its weekly supplement Zad on 6 February. The supplement was devoted to the 35th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and on the cover featured a caricature of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The cover caricature is a tradition for Zad, a supplement that came into existence in the first months of the Arab Spring. Ahmed al-Rubaie, the newspaper’s cartoonist, has drawn hundreds of caricatures of political and religious figures, from Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, Najaf’s grand ayatollah Al-Sistani and prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to Nelson Mandela and other internationally known figures. These cartoons are never intended to be offensive or convey a negative message, they are just an alternative to uninteresting photos of VIPs.
Zayer believes the caricature of Khamenei is just a pretext to attack the newspaper and have it closed before the parliamentary elections planned for this spring. But there may be yet more reasons for the attacks and threats against the newspaper. Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed recently covered a damning report by Human Rights Watch on the abuse of female detainees in Iraqi prisons. HRW accused the government of illegally detaining wives and daughters of (Sunni) suspects who are on the run, claiming detainees were sexually abused. Zayer wrote an open letter to the government, demanding that the Minister of Justice, Hassan al-Shimmari, be sacked. “I am ashamed of my country,” he commented, “What are we? A whorehouse?”
After some efforts to convince the Ministry of Interior to protect the newspaper and its staff, the office of the newspaper is now under permanent surveillance by the police, but it is unclear for how long. Zayer has left the country temporarily after receiving death threats. This is not the first time the editor has been forced to flee Baghdad.
In the beginning of 2006 when Iraq’s sectarian conflict led to thousands of assassinations a month, Zayer managed the newspaper from a small office in Amman, Jordan. He planned to create an international edition for the millions of Iraqi refugees outside their home country – a project that was almost ready to be launched when on 30 December, Saddam Hussein was hanged in a way that scandalised his Jordanian supporters and made the company that was going to produce the international edition wary of printing a newspaper critical of Ba’athists.
Zayer decided to open a second bureau in Erbil, the relatively safe capital of the autonomous Kurdish Region, and to bring back around a dozen journalists that had escaped to neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The bureau was maintained until the very end of 2009, when Zayer and most of his staff went back to Baghdad.
The newspaper has faced many other challenges. In May 2004, Zayer’s driver and bodyguard were killed during an attempt by fake police to kidnap the editor in chief. Later, one of Zayer’s brothers was kidnapped for a hefty ransom. More than once ministers ordered an advertising boycott – a large part of the advertising in the newspaper concerns government tenders, next to a steady stream of ads by mobile phone companies and real estate firms. Nowadays, a strange rule is in force that says tender ads can only be paid once the tender has been decided – as a result, the newspaper is sitting on hundreds of unpaid bills.
From 2006 until 2008, when Nouri al-Maliki, after having been under siege in Basra himself, finally decided to defeat the Shi’ite militias in the south and the capital, distribution of the newspaper was often prohibited in many cities and Baghdadi neighbourhoods. Distribution north of the capital was completely disrupted during the American siege of Fallujah at the end of 2004 – and for a long time thereafter. The Borsa in Baghdad, a building from where for years, several independent and party newspapers were sold to traders every morning, was occupied for months by Ba’athists. Sometimes printing houses ran out of paper after trucks were stolen on the road from Amman to Baghdad and their drivers killed.
By attempting to create a modern, democratic trade union for journalists, Zayer, who was elected its first president, ran into serious trouble with the old union, one of the many Ba’athist institutions the US occupation’s administration had left intact.
The newspaper has survived several libel cases brought on by various politicians demanding potentially ruinous compensation sums, owing its victories to courageous independent judges. It has survived vicious campaigns on the internet claiming it is in “American-Zionist” hands. Recently it survived the flooding of large parts of Baghdad, as a result of bad maintenance of the sewage system and torrential rain.
Iraqi readers have shown their support for the newspaper after the bomb attack. This February is not the first time there is no Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed in the streets – but this time, as those responsible for the bomb attack didn’t leave a business card, with whom should the newspaper negotiate? Removing the supplement from the website hasn’t helped to assuage the anger about the innocent caricature of Khamenei. In the past the newspaper could hang on thanks to financial help from donors, as well as political support from Iraqi ministers and top officials who think independent media are at least a necessary evil. It certainly needs solidarity now.
This article was published on 13 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Feb 2014 | News and features, Religion and Culture, Turkey
Limitations and challenges to freedom of expression and of assembly in Turkey have – once again – come to international attention over the past year. But despite this, censorship of the arts is often under-reported.
Siyah Bant was founded in 2011 as a research platform that documents censorship in the arts across Turkey by a group of arts managers, arts writers and academics working on freedom of expression. The group is concerned that many instances of censorship in the art world, especially in the visual and performing arts, were under-reported and only circulated as anecdotes. Siyah Bant also found the blanket understanding that “it is the state that censors” to be insufficient.
The Gezi Park protests that began in late May 2013 not only highlighted the continued existence of police violence and the institutionalized use of excessive force that has long been a familiar sight in the Kurdish region, and, more recently, in the protests against hydroelectric plants in the Black Sea parts of Turkey. The demonstrations also made apparent the tight grip that the alliance of political establishment and business conglomerates have over Turkish print and broadcasting media, as numerous journalists were fired for reporting on the anti-government protests.
Together with China and Iran, Turkey has been taken the lead in terms of numbers of imprisoned journalists, many of which are charged under anti-terrorism laws. Currently, all eyes are on the amendments to internet law 5651 that passed parliament in early February 2014, now waiting to be signed into effect by President Abdullah Gül.
While the government claims these changes are to ensure privacy and clamp down on pornography, activists maintain that the law will procedurally ease the profiling of internet users and effectively heighten government control over online content. Turkey has already a questionable track record when it comes to internet freedom with access to more than 40,000 internet sites being restricted.
Rather than operating through bans and efforts at complete suppression that marked the 1980 coup d’état and its aftermath, the current censorship mechanisms in Turkey aim to delegitimize and discourage artistic expressions and their circulation.
Siyah Bant’s initial aim was two-fold: Firstly, the group conducted research in five cities to identify and examine different modalities of censorship and the actors involved in censoring motions. Secondly, Siyah Bant wanted to create awareness around censorship in the arts and facilitate solidarity networks in the advocacy for freedom of expression in the arts.
In the course of its research it set up a website that documents arts censorship in Turkey and assembled two publications. The first presents selected case studies of censorship in the arts in Turkey as well as international initiatives in the fight for freedom of expression. The second focuses more closely on artists’ rights and the legal framework of freedom of the arts in Turkey as well as the ways in which these laws are applied–or not applied, in most cases.
The reports below center on new developments in Turkish cultural policy and their effects on freedom of arts as well as interviews conducted in Diyabakir and Batman where artists engaged in the Kurdish rights struggle have long been subjected to differential treatment by the Turkish authorities. Research for these reports was supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
• Developments in cultural policy and its effects on freedom of the arts, Ankara
• Artists engaged in Kurdish rights struggle face limits on free expression
This article was published on 13 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Feb 2014 | Religion and Culture, Turkey
A companion report: Developments in cultural policy and its effects on freedom of the arts, Ankara
As we have shown in previous publications, artists engaged in the Kurdish rights struggle are differentially affected by limitations to freedom of expression in general and in the arts in particular. This is even more the case in the (predominantly) Kurdish regions of Turkey where freedom of expression and assembly are monitored and affected by Turkey’s anti-terror legislation. In practice this has meant that all cultural (e.g. language) and artistic expression within the Kurdish rights struggle can be construed as illegitimate ‘separatist propaganda’ and hence outside of the protection of freedom of expression and the arts.
This year we wanted to conduct follow-up interviews in order to examine if and what kind of changes artists have experienced with the beginning of the “peace process” and the armistice between the Turkish Armed Forces and the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers Party). Officially announced in early spring 2013 by the government, this process has been all but transparent or linear, yet has raised hopes to bring an end to 30 years of armed conflict. Interviews were conducted with the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Diyarbakir Municipality, the Diyarbakir Municipal Theater, the Dicle Fırat Culture and Arts Center (Dicle Fırat Kültür Sanat Merkezi), independent filmmaker Zeynel Doğan who is also a lecturer at the Aram Tigran City Conservatory, the Kurdish publishing house Lis Yayınevi, members of the Bahar Cultural Center (Bahar Kültür Merkezi) and their lawyers as well as BART – the Batman Culture and Arts Association (Batman Kültür ve Sanat Derneği).
It may come to no surprise that while the reforms announced within the framework of the “democracy package,” especially the legalization of the Kurdish letters Q, W, X and teaching Kurdish in private schools, were highlighted by officials of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Ankara as achievements in the area of freedom of expression, the perception in the region is considerably different. As interviewees frequently noted these changes have merely legalized what Kurdish artists, activists and politicians have practiced – often under threats of incarceration and harassment, or worse – over the past decades. While all stated that the “peace process” has engendered hopes in the region and that the end of armed violence has a brought considerable relief, it seems that other practices, such as the constant surveillance of arts and cultural centers by Turkish security forces is still in place. Given that Ankara emphasizes arts and culture as important vehicles of societal peace that ought to be promoted, the question remains why artistic production in the Kurdish region remains under generalized suspicion of being or aiding terrorist activities.
As the director of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Diyarbakir Municipality, Muharrem Cebe, notes the Ministry of Culture and Tourism still shows little engagement with the city of Diyarbakir. Their activities center mostly on bringing one or two popular artists to town every year. In the area of restoration the Ministry continues to focus on historical sites that fit easily into nationalized (i.e. Turkified) narratives, such as the Ulu Mosque and the İçkale, rather than those that evidence Kurdish presence and history in the region. Since the Peace and Democracy Party (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, BDP) has come into office in Diyabakir, the municipality has explicitly pursued multicultural arts and languages policies, printing all its official communications in Kurdish, Armenian, Assyrian, Arabic and Turkish. The municipality has supported the renovation of the Armenian Surp Giragos Church and is in close collaboration with Surp Giragos Foundation. The Diyabakir Municipality is currently overseeing the restoration of the Cemil Pasha Mansion (Qonaxa Cemil Paşa), which will host the future city museum. This museum is intended to decidedly represent not only the city’s Kurdish past but aims to acknowledge other minority communities and their histories as well. The municipality has also granted the local Alevi Cemevi official status as a place of worship and hence logistical support entailing electricity, water and the like. Cebe emphasized that provisions for Kurdish as an elective or as offered in private schools without comprehensive structural support for Kurdish language education does not offer any real-life changes, not least by noting: “What good are these kinds of reforms as long as the Governor’s Office is not answering my letters.” Beyond the issue of language, Cebe’s statement points to the continued tension between centrally appointed governors and locally elected Kurdish representatives. For instance, in Turkey governors have some leeway to suppress arts and culture events at their own discretion, if they believe that the event may disturb the public order, be it in regard to morals, health, customs, or traditions, apart from the already mentioned perceived threats to national security and territorial integrity (similar discretionary powers also rest with the police that can intervene in art events without necessarily having to draw on the legal apparatus.) It is in the field of tension between the two levels of governance that restrictions on the freedom of expression in arts are frequently constituted in the Kurdish region.
One of the few municipal theaters in the Kurdish region, the Diyarbakir Municipal Theater (Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Belediyesi Şehir Tiyatrosu) has started to build up a Kurdish language repertoire from 2003 onwards and now is entirely performing in different Kurdish languages. Artistic director Rüknettin Gün recounts that before 2003 Turkish Security forces would function almost as unofficial “dramaturges” in that they wanted to see all scripts in advance and even attend rehearsals. Since the 2004 municipal elections, but even more so after those in 2009 that went to the BDP, the municipal theater has been free of such supervision and surveillance, at least officially. Unfortunately this is not the case for independent arts organizations. However, whenever the Diyarbakir Municipal Theater tours outside of Diyarbakir for guest performances in Dersim or Iğdır a mere four to five months ago, they remain subject to security checks and surveillance, unless the stage they are using is connected to a BDP municipality. This means that they still have to provide a synopsis of the play and relay ID information of all actors and support personnel in advance to the local authorities to receive a performance permit. Gün noted that by recording of the plays security forces “always make their presence felt.” While Diyarbakir Municipal Theater has not encountered any last minute cancellations during this year’s guest performances, our research showed that refusing previously promised spaces and venues remains a frequent tool in suppressing Kurdish artistic production throughout Turkey. [1]
Gün also clarified that their performance of Hamlet in Kurdish was a co-production with the Amsterdam-based Theater RAST and did not receive any support from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The play was performed in Ankara on the invitation of Ankara Arm of TAKSAV (Toplumsal Araştırmalar, Kültür ve Sanat İçin Vakıf, the Foundation for Social Research, Culture and Art) and that then Minister Ertuğrul Günay attended the performance along with other officials out of his own initiative.
The disjuncture between state institutions and local arts organizations was long mirrored by the Diyarbakir State Theater as well. Gün noted that the state theater did not pursue an organic connection with the city. However, its new director Uğur Çınar, who has previously worked in the Municipal Theater, is promising in terms of changing this policy. The Director General of the State Theater, Mustafa Kurt, has announcement that the state theater is thinking about establishing bilingual theater repertoires and that they are considering Diyarbakir for a pilot program. Although the legal reform packages of 2002 and 2004 had already lifted restrictions in language use there has been to date not state theater production in Kurdish. Even the often-cited performance of “Mem û Zîn” by the state theater in Van was actually staged in Turkish. While Gün too stated that hopes were tied to the current political process, he also noted that the latest reforms but legalize what has long been practiced in Diyarbakir and the region overall. This was also confirmed by Lal Laleş of Lis Publishing.
Filmmaker Zeynel Doğan highlighted how beyond direct state interventions, 30 years of armed conflict have produced a psychological toll on the Kurdish population that has also impacted artistic production. Resources to produce films reflecting daily experiences of Kurds remain limited. For instance, it is nearly impossible to visually portray or reenact scenes of military interventions, the destruction of entire villages, or even the customary ID controls in their actual scope as this would involve showing military and police vehicles. This is not an issue for mainstream Turkish productions, both in terms of budget but also with regard to permits and the cooperation of, for instance, the Turkish Armed Forces to provide tanks and similar machinery. The same is true for trying to reenact mass protests. Even filmic representation of these experiences on a small scale tend to draw attention by local security forces and end up in potential interventions.[2]
During the shooting of his 2012 film “Babamin Sesi (My Father’s Voice)” in Elbistan, rumors began to circulate that they were shooting a guerilla film. These rumors led to the Elbistan municipality withdrawing all support it had previously promised, and this although the project was funded by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Doğan recounts that they were under constant surveillance by plain cloth officers. While they did not explicit intervene in the shoot, their presence produced constant tension and discomfort on the set.
Members of the Dicle Fırat Culture and Arts Center likewise note that while physical violence has retreated into the background over the past decade, regular surveillance of their center and recording of their performance (i.e. procedures that are nothing short of harassment) continues to be part of their everyday lives. The kind of psychological stress inflicted by these experiences stays, as do some of their still unresolved court cases, mostly for performing songs like “Herne Pêş”[3] and taking part in rallies and Kurdish arts festivals, which have consistently been interpreted as illegal political expressions by the Turkish authorities. The see the recent steps of the government while in part positive as running the danger of merely instrumentalizing Kurdish artistic and cultural production.
Outside of Diyarbakir and other BDP municipalities however, we are confronted with an even more daunting picture. One of the most striking cases of censorship in the region has been that of 13 artists affiliated with Bahar Kültür Merkezi (NavenDa Canda Baharé) in Batman. Prosecuted by the 4. Diyarbakır High Criminal Court the artists’ “offenses” range from participating in the 2006 Batman Kültür Sanat Festivali, local Newroz celebrations, attendance of press conferences and supporting slogans by playing percussions at political rallies and demonstrations. Apart from being charged with ‘separatist propaganda’ or, alternatively, ‘being a member of a terrorist group,’ a number of artists were also convicted of several counts of transgression against law 2911, i.e. the regulations pertaining to freedom of assembly (Toplantı ve Gösteri Yürüyüşü Kanunu) opened against them in the past four years – a part of which is now in from of the appeals court.[4] The cases illustrate that all utterances by Kurdish artists can still be construed as unconstitutional political expressions rather than recognize the expressions as art and hence protected by Articles 27 and 64 of the Turkish Constitution.
Lawyer Mesut Beştaş explained that in accordance with the 3rd and 4th legal reform package a part of these verdicts has been deferred under the condition that the accused artists do not repeat the ‘offences’ with which they have been charged in the coming five years. This means that the 13 artists are de-facto on probation (denetimli serbestlik). According Beştaş the legal parameters of such a probationary decision are rather vague and their enforcement is left to the discretion of the individual judge rather than being based on clearly defined regulations. The decision of the court hence presents a measure of trying to discourage artists active in the Kurdish rights struggle from taking part in events that could be deemed political by the courts, and foreclose any kinds of expression produced on their part.
Beştaş explained that in these cases freedom of the arts was not accepted as a valid argument of the defense, as the courts interpret artistic expression not in its own right but rather as a vehicle “to become one with the masses that are taking part in an illegal demonstration,” or alternatively as a vehicle that motivates protestors in activities deemed unlawful by the courts. The generalized suspicion that artists engaged in the Kurdish rights struggle are faced with also becomes apparent in the raids conducted on the Bahar Cultural Center as parts of the recent KCK operations. If and what kind of changes will emerge from the “peace process” and the recent “democracy package” remains to be seen. Beştaş noted that the court of appeals rarely reviews cases unless there are substantial legal changes. According to his observations in over 90% of the cases the appeals court confirms the original verdict. It is also disconcerting that while the government has presented the steps taken in 2013 as path-breaking, practices of surveillance and prosecution not only remain in place. Abdullah Tarhan, who is a member of the board of directors of the Bahar Cultural Center and a theater artist by training, for instance, has incurred two new court cases this year: One because he took part in the 2013 Newroz celebrations in Van as a presenter and the other because he recited a poem by Cigerxwîn during an event in Batman. As the Bahar Cultural Center is incorporated as a private business the police is not authorized to conduct surveillance on the premises, yet all of their public performances continue to be recorded.
Despite the government’s proclaimed reform efforts, which were supposed to be illustrated by Erdoğan’s visit to Diyarbakir in November 2013 and to which Şivan Perwer and İbrahim Tatlıses were invited to perform not only in Turkish but also in Kurdish, the question remains what will happen to the convictions and pending cases of the many Kurdish artists who have been indicted over the past decade. This unevenness remains as the recent reforms thus far formalize, if only partially, what has been a hard-fought for practice in the Kurdish regions. Yet, some also expressed hope that Kurdish language proficiency was becoming a more sought after and financially rewarded skill, especially as state and private media (such as the Gülen-supported Dünya TV) are producing more and more Kurdish programming and TV serials. Some project that these developments will raise interest in learning Kurdish and extend its institutionalization. This institutionalization is needed, so the respondents, not least to ensure the viability of Kurdish heritage. Yet they are also very aware that relying on commercial value alone presents is a doubled-edged sword and emphasize that what is needed are constitutional provisions for education in mother-tongue and the protection of Kurdish cultural production in the framework of freedom of expression.
[1] See Siyahbant (Istanbul, 2012) and Siyahbant, Sanatta İfade Özgürlüğü, Sansür ve Hukuk >(Istanbul, 2013).
[2] This was the instance the case for directors Kazım Öz and Mizgin Müjde Arslan who along with members of their crew were taken into custody while working on their feature films (see “Batman’da Kürt Sinemacılara Gözaltı”, and “Kayıp Mezar’ı Önce Savcı Gördü”).
[3] A revolutionary Kurdish march based on the poem by Cigerxwîn.
[4] A compilation of available online news items.
This report on the effects of cultural policy and its effects on freedom of the arts was conducted by Siyah Bant with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. It is reproduced here with permission.
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/02/developments-cultural-policy-effects-freedom-arts-ankara” title=”This article was published on 13 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org”>This article was posted on February 13, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
