Turkish journalist, author and filmmaker Can Dündar spoke at the House of Commons last week about the state of politics and media freedom in Turkey. The event was hosted by the Centre for Turkey Studies and chaired by Scottish Liberal Democrat peer Lord Jeremy Purvis of Tweed.
Dündar, the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison on 6 May 2016, just hours after a failed attempt on his life by a gunman. Along with Cumhuriyet journalist Erdem Gül, he was convicted of “leaking secret state information” for the paper’s reports claiming that Turkey was sending weapons to Islamists in Syria.
The pair were arrested and detained in November 2015, just days before a meeting of the EU heads of state with Turkey, the first meeting of its kind in almost six decades. “Turkey was not on the agenda because it was a democratic country, but because of the need for Turkey regarding the migrant issue,” Dündar explained.
Although he has been out of prison since February 2016, when he returns to Turkey — which he defiantly said he will — he risks serving his sentence.
Watching from his TV in solitary confinement during his stint in prison, Dündar learned of the deal that Turkey would keep asylum seekers from crossing into Europe, and in return the country would receive €3bn and visa exemptions.
Asylum seekers were “held hostage” by Turkey, Dündar said. “I was waiting until the end of the conference hoping there would be some mention of the free press, but there was nothing.”
He has been a journalist for 35 years, working in television and in print. “Throughout all these years working in the media, it has never been a paradise, but I don’t think it’s ever been quite as hellish as it is at the moment,” Dündar added. “We face oppression and censorship.”
The EU was due to release a report on Turkey’s lack of press freedom just weeks before the summit and in time for the Turkish general election. Dündar told the audience that following a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and EU officials, the report was delayed until after the general election.
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party achieved electoral victory and a week later, the report was published. “The human rights record of Turkey was condemned in strong terms,” Dündar said.
“For those of us who grew up in Turkey, in view of the Western, democratic ideals, this was very disappointing,” Dündar told the audience. “Europe is a great ideal, something to aim for.”
Dündar has lived through three military coups in Turkey. “Back then there was serious censorship,” he said. “But Erdoğan has succeeded in doing something the military couldn’t: he has instructed the media moguls close to him to buy up newspapers and TV stations, establishing a coup of friendly media.”
Dündar explains that these Erdoğan-friendly groups — mainly rich civil engineering companies receiving favours from the president — control 60% of the media, while opposition media make up only about 5-10% of the market.
Critics of Erdogan face further financial difficulty in the form of harsh fines for “insulting” Erdogan — of which there have been over 3,000 cases. “The president takes any criticism as an insult,” Dündar explained, joking: “He is the most insulted president in the world.”
Critical media outlets also find it difficult to generate revenue through advertising because “any company advertising with us will also face sanction”. The media faces further pressures in the form of “severe tax bills” and the intimidation of journalists to “toe the line”.
When journalists like Dündar aren’t visiting colleagues in prison and attending court cases in support of friends, they are preparing for their own hearings. And while they often win international awards for their work, “we can’t eat those so we have to create resources”.
Although the situation in Turkey looks unpromising, Dündar told the audience to remember that “there is another Turkey that believes in democracy and secularism”. There exists a “great existential struggle” and the aim for those like him “is to overcome this fear, but we have to be brave and we have to unite”.
In this struggle, Dündar asked the people of Europe for “support and solidarity” before Turkey “becomes a fascist regime”. He called on the Western media to do more to draw attention to the crimes of Erdoğan.
Ryan McChrystal is the assistant online editor at Index on Censorship
Index writers pick their favourite features from 250 issues
To celebrate the 250th issue of Index on Censorship magazine, we asked some of our contributors to nominate memorable articles from the publication’s long history. Here they share their memories and recommendations.
David Aaronovitch – author, Times columnist and chair of Index on Censorship
We are all familiar with the idea of luvvies. The word suggests the artist, actor or musician who, unread and emoting, trespasses onto the stage of public affairs and gets on everyone’s tits. It is sometimes true but usually wrong. One of my favourite Index magazine pieces (and there are so many to choose from) was written in 2006 by that epitome of the engaged intellectual, Tom Stoppard. Stoppard was involved with Index in its early days and has remained a patron and in this piece, he asks whether freedom of speech really is a human right. This is an awkward question in the middle of a magazine which would want to assist at every turn that a right is exactly what it is – none greater. But Stoppard argues that what makes a society one in which he would want to live is not the demanding of a right, but the according of it – the day-by-day renewed assumption that others will say what they want. Because that’s the way we choose to live.
As I am trying to finish a major piece of writing, I didn’t have the time to go to the office where most of my Index back issues await me. I remember stories and poems from countries that generally receive little or no attention and wanted to highlight one of those. Index has published so many of my own works over the decades (I especially think Trademark Territory or Je Suis José Carrasco piece are relevant today), but, hands down, I would have to choose the publication of [my 1990 play] Death and the Maiden as my most important memory. Index was the first to publish the text before it became famous. This is typical of Index’s commitment to those who are on the margins of public notoriety, its mission to bring out of the darkness the voices that are suppressed by tyrants or by neglect and indifference, the voices of the Paulinas of the world.
I would have to pick Fabrizio Gatti’s piece Undercover Immigrant, which is a stunning piece of journalism. Gatti spent fours years undercover, investigating migrant journeys from Africa to Europe. What is remarkable about his piece, an extract of his book published for the first time in English by Index, is that he so successfully managed to hide his true identity as a Italian by assuming the identity of Bilal, a Kurdish asylum seeker. By doing this, Gatti got unique access into the Lampedusa’s migrant centres, the tiny island in the Med that has become a symbol of Europe’s migrant crisis. Through telling the story of “Bilal”, he was able to get fascinating perspective on the migrant journeys and reveals the shocking stark reality of being a migrant in Italy, a situation which 10 years on from Gatti’s undercover reports has sadly barely changed. Like then, thousands of migrants still die in dinghies trying to reach Europe.
Undercover Immigrant was published in Spring 2015 (volume 44 , issue 1), within a special report on refugee voices. You can also listen to an extract of the piece via an Index podcast
Janet Suzman – actress and director
I am without hesitation going to choose the whole of your Shakespeare-themed spring 2016 edition. I’m choosing it because from the beginning of my career I fervently believed that there was more to Shakespeare – indeed more to all drama – than simply getting one’s teeth into a juicy part. From every corner of the unfree world, the essays you have printed bear me out; theatre is a danger to ignorance and autocracy and Shakespeare still holds the sway. To quote my favourite aperçu: Shakespeare’s plays, like iron filings to a magnet, seem to attract any crisis that is in the air. I congratulate you and Index on giving such space to a writer who is still bannable after 400-plus years.
There are too many articles to choose from, but I chose Ken Wiwa’s Letter to my Father, as it perfectly demonstrates Index on Censorship’s commitment to story-telling. Ken Wiwa’s letter [to his father and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa who was hanged during Nigeria’s military dictatorship] reminds the reader that behind significant political events are personal stories, like the relationship between a son and his father. Index recognises the power of personal stories in order to reach the widest audience.
Index will celebrate 250 issues of the magazine next week at a special event at MagCulture. To explore over 40 years of archives, subscribe today via Sage Publications. Or sign up for Exact Editions’ digital version, which offers access to 38 back issues.
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.
Turkey: DIHA reporter arrested in Batman
4 July 2016: Dicle News Agency reporter Serife Oruc was sent to court on the charges of being “member of an illegal organisation”, news website Bianet reported. Oruc was arrested with two other men who were in the same car with Oruc, Emrullah Oruc and Muzaffar Tunc.
All three were transferred to a prison in Batman.
UK: Journalist claims Telegraph censored article critical of Theresa May
The piece was published on 1 July in the news section of the Telegraph but was subsequently taken down from the website. It was entitled “Theresa May is a great self-promoter but a terrible Home Secretary”.
“Daily Telegraph pulled my comment piece on Theresa May ministerial record after contact from her people #censorship”, journalist Jonathan Foreman tweeted on 2 July.
Daily Telegraph pulled my comment piece on Theresa May ministerial record after contact from her people #censorshiphttps://t.co/RYhl2Xsx5C
1 July 2016: The Pskov office of the Russian justice ministry declared Svobodnoye Slovo (Free Word), an NGO which publishes the independent newspaper Pskovskaya gubernia, a “foreign agent”.
In addition, the statement said the NGO is running “political activities” because the newspaper is covering political issues.
Independent regional Pskovskaya Gubernia became well-known after a series of articles revealing Russian casualties in eastern Ukraine in the beginning of the Donbass conflict in the summer of 2014.
Azerbaijan: Editor sentenced to three months in jail for extortion
1 July 2016: Fikrat Faramazoglu, editor-in-chief of jam.az, a website that documents cases and arrests related to the ministry of national security, was arrested last Friday. He has been given a three-month sentence after being accused of extorting money by threats.
Faramazoglu’s wife said a group of three unidentified men showed up at their home, confiscating his laptop. Documents and even CDs from his children’s weddings were confiscated without any warrant. The three men informed Faramazoglu’s wife that her husband had been arrested.
Russia: Police detains Meduza freelancer covering death of children in Karelia
30 June 2016: Police detained Danil Alexandrov, a freelance journalist for Meduza news website working in Republic of Karelia reporting on the death of 14 children in a boating accident on Syamozero Lake. He was accused of working “without a license“.
“They hinted that it might be necessary to confiscate ‘evidence of my journalistic activities’,” Alexandrov told Meduza, adding that the police insisted the publication was a foreign media outlet and had to be accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Foreign Ministry’s rules on accreditation discuss full-time staff members of foreign media outlets but do not comment on freelancers. Alexandrov’s court case is scheduled for 6 July. He faces a maximum penalty of 1,000 rubles (€14) for working “without a license”.
Yesterday, the European Parliament adopted, with a large majority, a resolution condemning recent human rights abuses performed by Bahraini authorities, and strongly called for an end to the ongoing repression against the country’s human rights defenders, political opposition and civil society.
Members of the European Parliament called for the immediate and unconditional release of Nabeel Rajab and other human rights defenders jailed over charges related to the exercise of their freedom of speech. They further condemned Bahraini authorities’ measures to prevent representatives of civil society from participating in the work of international bodies, such as the recent imposition of travel bans on the delegation set to attend the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in June.
In the resolution, MEPs urged the Bahraini government to stop persecuting legitimate political opposition. They condemned the decision to suspend the country’s biggest opposition group, Al-WefaqNational Islamic Society, and called for the release of Sheikh Ali Salman, the group’s secretary general whose sentence was increased from 4 to 9 years in May.
The MEPs particularly condemned the Bahraini authorities’ misuse of anti-terrorism laws and mechanisms for denaturalisation as means of political pressure. The European Parliament strongly called on the authorities to reverse the decision to revoke the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Qassim and to “restore Bahraini citizenship to all those individuals who were unfairly stripped of it.”
The resolution also called for the effective implementation of the 2011 recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, the Universal Periodic Review and the country’s own constitutional provisions linked to the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Furthermore, the resolution recognised the risk of impending execution faced by Mohammed Ramadan and Ali Moosa.
Finally, MEPs condemned the agreements on trade in weapons and technologies used to violate human rights and called for the prohibition of exports of tear gas and anti-riot equipment to Bahrain until investigations have been carried out into their inappropriate use.
The undersigned NGOs strongly welcome the resolution as a clear signal to the Bahraini authorities that they must respect their international commitments, as well as their own constitution, and allow their citizens to exercise their basic rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and assembly.
We believe that it is of the utmost importance that EU policy and decision-makers assert the respect for human rights and legitimate expression of political dissent as a condition for any further development of relations with Bahrain and GCC countries. The next opportunity to do so will be the EU-GCC ministerial meeting which will be held in Brussels on 19 July 2016.
In what has been a concerted crackdown on civil society, media and fundamental freedoms, Bahraini authorities have in the past month embarked on a series of arrests, impositions of travel bans and denaturalisations of their citizens who have tried to exercise their fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
These moves include:
the arrest and prosecution of the prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab;
the suspension, announced dissolution and the asset-freeze of the country’s biggest opposition party, the Al-Wefaq Islamic Society;
an increased jail sentence, from 4 to 9 years, for the party’s Secretary-General, Sheikh Ali Salman;
the imposition of travel bans on journalists and activists, including a delegation of human rights activists set to participate at the 32nd UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva;
the forced exile of prominent human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja;
the suspension of several non-governmental and religious organisations;
the denationalisation of Sheikh Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of the Bahrain’s Shia majority population
These moves, and in particular the decision to revoke the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Qassim, provoked a wave of mass protests across the country, representing the largest public outcry since the 2011 unrest.
