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This column was originally submitted to Today’s Zaman, but was rejected by the new management. Ihsan Yilmaz is the founding president of the Istanbul Institute, a think tank based in Turkey, and was a columnist for Today’s Zaman.
Just before I wrote my last piece for Today’s Zaman, there were rumors that the Zaman daily, written in Turkish, and Today’s Zaman, would be seized by the government. Thus, I wrote that if that happens, “about 90% of media coverage would directly or indirectly be in [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s hands. What does that mean? This means no one will ever be able to defeat him and his party in any election. This means a death warrant for Turkish democracy. No one will have the chance to learn about the mistakes of the [Justice and Development Party] AKP. In this Orwellian nightmare, even the mistakes of the AKP will be sold to voters as its great successes. For instance, even though Turkey is now divided in two, the AKP will successfully convince its voters that Turkey has gotten rid of its ineffective parts and is now ready to be stronger and conquer the world. Even as of today, the AKP has about 40% of the voters, and they would swallow this stupid propaganda despite the news coverage of non-AKP media. Imagine how many more could start believing AKP fabrications after these media outlets are turned into mouthpieces of the AKP?”
I also added that: “In such a setting, no party other than the AKP will ever be able to convince the AKP’s voters, who now make up about 50-55% of the electorate, that they are not working for the CIA. Turkey will continue to hold elections, but similar to Iran, only Erdoğan-approved candidates will be able to contest. In the meantime, Erdoğan will continue to deal with his NATO allies, the West, the EU, etc., with his infamous stick and carrot policies…”
Well, the AKP regime has indeed seized those two newspapers and as it did with the Bugün daily, the Millet daily, Bugün TV and Kanaltürk TV, which it seized them several months ago, it transformed these critical media outlets into mouthpieces of the AKP government. And, as I claimed, neither the US government nor the EU or NATO governments could seriously criticise the AKP regime for its seizure of the country’s best-selling Turkish and English dailies. These two dailies have joined many others in becoming the Orwellian propaganda and brainwashing tools of the AKP regime but all these Western governments could say is that they are concerned about the developments. It is like a joke. It is similar to seeing a murderer slaughtering a human and instead of doing anything, just saying that you are concerned that this person might be harmed.
As a result of the AKP seizure of the Zaman daily, Today’s Zaman, the Bugün daily, the Millet daily, Bugün TV and Kanaltürk TV, and the forced closure of STV, SHaber and a few others, the AKP indeed controls 90% of media coverage in Turkey. What is more, the AKP regime has also seized the biggest news private news agency in Turkey, the Cihan news agency. Cihan has been the only private news agency to monitor elections and report from every ballot box. For the last two elections, the efforts of the state news agency, the Anatolia news agency, to manipulate the results were neutralized by Cihan’s objective coverage of the counting of the votes. Now, it is in the hands of the AKP. It is crystal clear that Turkish voters will not have a chance to monitor the elections results, given the fact that the opposition parties are very weak and their members who work at the ballot boxes on elections day could easily be made pro-AKP with all sorts of stick and carrot methods that the AKP is infamously known for.
All in all, Turkey will never be able to have genuine elections and Turkey will never be able to count the votes fairly. Now, the AKP wants to change the Constitution with a referendum to create a presidential system without checks and balances. The AKP can easily get 60% of the vote to approve such a tyrannical system under the current conditions. Our NATO allies will continue to be concerned about such a despotic regime, but on the other hand, they will happily continue to work with such a regime.
What a shame.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
The What a Liberty! project were taken on a tour of Lincoln Cathedral during their trip to see the Magna Carta. Credit: Bill Thompson
Members of the What a Liberty! project were taken to see the oldest remaining copy of the Magna Carta at Lincoln Castle on Saturday, where they gained an understanding about the creation of the ancient document and its impact on history.
The Heritage Lottery-funded project has recruited a group of young people with the aim of providing them training in film, journalism and digital skills to create their own Magna Carta 2.0; and the trip gave the participants involved the opportunity to find inspiration for their own charter.
After a keynote speech from Dr Erik Grigg on how Magna Carta was made with the intention of protecting only a small amount of King John of England’s people but excluded the vast majority of the population — the peasants or the “unfree” — much of the group felt encouraged to ensure people of all classes and backgrounds were treated equally.
“I’d like to produce something with equality for different classes, with all ethnic backgrounds having equal rights to prevent them from being discriminated or segregated,” said Jessie Sbresni.
Taali Lionel-Levy added: “Peasants didn’t really have much. People from poorer backgrounds should have been included more. That was unfair.”
It was not only equality for different classes that the group wanted after hearing more about the Magna Carta, but also gender equality. Maria Abukhadra said: “Women couldn’t do certain things which I found a bit sexist, so I’d want to make sure there was equality for all genders. There would be equality for every individual.”
What a Liberty! project members Alisia Usher and Victoria Sajuyigbe take photos during a walk along Lincoln Castle’s wall. Credit: Bill Thompson
Before taking a tour around the Victorian prison and its chapel, inside the Lincoln Castle grounds, the group were taken to the vaults where the Magna Carta is displayed. The ancient document is still influential today; most notably we have the right to a trial by jury today thanks to its inclusion in the original Magna Carta.
Darshan Leslie said: “It was quite a special experience seeing one of the original copies in person, and getting to see the origins of the liberties and freedoms that we have today.
“I’ve learnt all about how it started with King John, and how he signed it but didn’t stick to it. Which led to a new charter, the Charter of the Forest. I thought that was very interesting to know about.”
To end the day, the group was taken on a tour of Lincoln Cathedral where they were taught more about the importance of religion in Lincoln’s history; and the symbolism of the cathedral’s architecture.
“I loved the idea of experiencing history first hand. It’s all well and good hearing about it but being able to see it and touch it has been awesome,” Esther Olusanya said.
Sarah Barber, co-editor of the Young Journalist Academy programme, who has been working with the group on the project said of the day: “I think its been good for the group to think about the different themes that their Magna Carta could cover because there are areas that we spoke about today that hadn’t been discussed before.
“I’ll be working with the group next on the media training so that they can create their Magna Carta 2.0. I’m going to be training them in the use of cameras and editing software, and we are going to be looking at creating a website too.”
From an artist who had barely used Facebook to the face of #YoTambienExijo, the international online movement for free speech – Tania Bruguera describes how the perfect coalescence of art, social media and politics allowed the world to see the real Cuba at a crucial time in the country’s history.
The beginnings of the #YoTambienExijo movement were born on 17 December 2014, when President Obama announcement a landmark warming of the 53-year chill between the United States and Cuba.
“When I first heard about the Cuba-US reconciliation it had a great impact on me as an artist, but also as a Cuban citizen,” Tania Bruguera told Index. “I was glad about the decision, but at the same time a lot of questions came to my head. Who is going to define that different Cuba? Who is going to be in charge of creating that different Cuba?”
Writing an open letter addressed to Obama, the Pope and Cuban president Raúl Castro, Bruguera demanded for Cubans “the right to know what is being planned with our lives”, also demanding that Cuban citizens gain more from his political change than a place at the table of North American trade.
“Yo Tambien Exijo was one of the phrases in the letter – I also demand. I also demand to know. I demand as a Cuban.”
The sentiment resonated with many Cubans around the world, and after her sister Deborah Bruguera created the Facebook page, #YoTambienExijo, the site quickly attracted thousands of followers.
In the final part of her letter, Bruguera called for Castro to hand over the microphone to the people of Cuba – a reference to a performance piece of Bruguera’s which gives any audience member one minute of unhindered free speech. The idea captured the imagination of #YoTambienExijo’s online audience, who asked Bruguera to stage the performance at the Havana Biennial, an art fair taking place in Cuba’s capital that month.
But arriving in the country days later, Bruguera found her words had not been met with the same level of support by the Cuba government. “I was pretty naïve,” says Bruguera. “When I entered the country, I start behaving as if human rights were being respected. And that clashed with reality.”
A smear campaign was launched against Bruguera, with government-sponsored blogs characterizing the artist as a provocateur acting under the influence of foreign pressure, and even labeling her as a drug smuggler. It’s not uncommon for the Cuban government to attempt to undermine dissenting voices as CIA or right wing, the artist says: “I think one good thing is I’ve worked for 20 years. So people know who I am. Sometime when you are dissident or you are an activist just starting working, in Cuba they are very good at putting in people’s mind the image of that person they want for the rest of the people.”
But in spite of continued pressure from government officials to cancel the performance, Bruguera refused. “I always say I have no money, I have nothing. I have only my word. So I have to defend that. In this case I gave my word to the 12,000 people who were waiting for this.”
Organising collective action is difficult in Cuba, where low internet connectivity and high levels of state security tend to impede any political protest. So the #YoTambienExijo team put out an online plea for Cubans around the world to call their families and tell them about the performance – which many did.
On the day of the performance Bruguera was arrested, along with several dissidents who had expressed solidarity with Bruguera’s project. But the attempt to stop the performance failed; news of the #YoTambienExijo page and the performance had already spread to Cuban people.
Imprisoned for the whole performance (she was subsequently released and then rearrested twice), Bruguera only learnt later of the arrests of several audience members. As these events unfolded, reporting from the #YoTambienExijo team spread online, gathering international support for Bruguera, and after 14 prominent artists wrote a letter to The Guardian condemning Bruguera’s arrest, the hashtag #FreeTaniaBruguera soon began trending, and another online letter began circulating. “In 24 hours, more than 3,000 people from the international art world signed, including directors from MoMa and the Tate.” Bruguera refused to allow her own release until all audience members were freed along with her. The mounting pressure from the global community meant that, eventually, the every person arrested in connection with the performance was released.
These events were an important wake-up call, Bruguera believes. “Cuba was trying to sell itself to the world as the next opportunity for business, and as a good person, as a victim for 50 years. This unveiled the truth.” In reality, Cuban government’s control over media public discussion and the arts has been absolute for over five decades.
But what happened also showed Bruguera a way forward for Cuba. “It was for me a very difficult experience – the most difficult I have ever had in my life. But it really put us in a way that we are all together, and we understood that we can make a change in Cuba. Because we were able to mobilize not only that many Cubans, but we were able to mobilize also a big group of international artists.”
The international reaction to Bruguera’s story turned #YoTambienExijo into a movement capturing more than just the Cuban experience. Around the world performances were staged in solidarity, with arts organisations including Creative Time in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Netherlands’ Van Abbe Museum, and the Tate Modern, all giving audiences one minute of free speech. It also became a form of protest in countries around the world where citizens and artists face censorship.
“It became Cuba focused and then it became more about totalitarianism in the world in general,” said Bruguera. “And it became also about the role of an artist who wants to deal with political issues in contemporary art.”
Last year Bruguera was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss prize and named one of Foreign Policy’s Global thinkers of 2015. She is now planning to return to Cuba to set up a space in Havana, the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Art and Artivism, a place for the Cuban people to advance their freedom of expression.
Thousands of people gather in solidarity outside Zaman newspaper in Istanbul on 5 March 2016.
Nicole Pope is an independent writer, journalist, Turkey analyst, translator, editor, consultant. Pope was a columnist for Today’s Zaman since its launch on 15 January 2007. This column was rejected by the new management of Zaman.
How do you write a column for a newspaper that still exists nominally but has been taken over by trustees appointed by an “independent” court? Such are the dilemmas in a country where democratic standards are slipping rapidly. No journalism school or manual of ethical journalism prepares one for such a situation.
Do you stop writing immediately to stand against an obvious violation of press freedom and show solidarity with colleagues who have already been dismissed? Or do you sit down to pen one last column in support of the journalists and employees still at work, whose livelihood is under threat? They are doing their job and preparing a newspaper even though they know, as I do, that in the current hostile environment it is unlikely to be published in its original form or even published at all.
I opted for the latter, which potentially also offers the opportunity to thank the readers who have followed me over the years and to comment on the rapid deterioration of fundamental freedoms in Turkey.
The takeover of the Zaman group, supported by tear gas and water cannons, was reflected on television screens around the world in all its brutality. It needs to be viewed in a broader context as the latest of many blows inflicted to the independence of the media in Turkey where journalists’ ability to cover events and hold those in power accountable has been shrinking for some time.
In recent months, the crackdown has intensified. Few independent outlets remain, particularly on television, which reaches the widest audience. This allows the authorities to control the narrative and produce a sanitized version of events that suit their purposes.
The notion that criticism can be constructive, allowing societies to improve, grow and be more innovative and also ensuring that those in power serve the interests of the population as a whole, has vanished entirely in the black and white, with us or against us world that the “new” Justice and Development Party (AKP) has constructed.
After spending more than a quarter of a century covering Turkey, I’m aware that media independence has always been an elusive concept, not just for politicians, but also for media groups — even this one, in some instances — and among journalists themselves. In the twists and turns of Turkish politics, we’ve all been caught short at one point or another.
What makes the current decline particularly painful is that for a brief moment in its early years, the AKP lifted some red lines and allowed sensitive topics to be discussed more openly. But the window did not remain open for long. Today, the power exercised in the past by the military-backed state has shifted to different hands and it is more concentrated than ever before.
Some 30 journalists are currently behind bars. Countless others face judicial harassment and pay regular visits to court to answer ludicrous charges designed to intimidate and silence them. The recent Constitutional Court’s decision to release Can Dündar and Erdem Gül provided only a brief respite.
Media independence and freedom of expression are important in and of themselves, but they also underpin other rights, allowing violations to be exposed to public scrutiny. In the absence of free media access, the human cost and the devastation caused by the blanket curfews imposed in places like Cizre and Sur, where government forces are fighting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, have not received adequate attention, for instance, although ministers acknowledge that 355,000 residents have been displaced.
With much of the media under government control, the voices of progressive women are also being drowned. As the world marks International Women’s Day, the Turkish authorities have resorted to prohibitions and rubber bullets to prevent Turkish women from taking their demands to the streets.
Violence against women and the struggle for gender equality have always occupied an important place in this column because I view the prevailing brand of macho politics, which imposes views instead of seeking compromise and rules through confrontation rather than consensus, as a major hindrance to Turkey’s democratic and economic development.
This patriarchal approach, based on traditional gender roles, currently reigns supreme. It goes hand-in-hand with a top-down understanding of politics that brooks no dissent and wants to silence independent voices in the media and in society. As I bid readers goodbye, I wish I could have ended on a more optimistic note.
The intertwining nature of music and politics is nothing new. Tom Morello, former Rage Against the Machine guitarist, has been raging against corruption and inept politicians for years. Bernie Sanders, influenced by folk greats like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, released an EP of covers with the help of fellow Vermont artists and politicians in 1987. Even former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a classically trained performer since her adolescent years, played piano alongside Aretha Franklin in Philadelphia in 2010. However, the words “Taiwanese parliament” and “death metal” are not a combination most are familiar with. Freddy Lim, frontman of one of Asia’s most popular heavy-metal bands, Chthonic, is out to change that.
Lim recently won a seat in parliament representing the New Power Party and defeating Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member Lin Yu-fang, who had held his seat for 20 years. The election saw an end to KMT control, with Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic Progress Party, becoming Taiwan’s first female president. Lim, a longtime human rights activist, served as president of Taiwan’s Amnesty International branch from 2010 until 2014. Lim’s unconventional persona — performing in excessive face paint and flaunting tattooed biceps — has been attractive to the country’s youth, who have been receptive to Lim’s political activism around gay rights, government transparency and environmental issues.
Index on Censorship had the chance to discuss Lim’s outlook on Taiwanese politics and the power of music.
Index: What are your biggest goals for your term? Which do you hope to accomplish first?
Lim: I hope that during my term, we are able to deepen the democracy in Taiwan. Within the next four years, I hope we are able to correct a lot of things, including fixing our current referendum laws, reworking our impeachment laws so we can actually vote a public official out of office. I’m hoping to help complete the improvement our legislature through reform — to allow our legislators to be able to conduct investigations when they need to, also to allow the legislature to be monitored by citizens, and to give the legislature the ability to monitor the government.
Index: How do you think music breaks down suppression and censorship in the world? In Taiwan?
Lim: Music is a very special medium. It can break through barriers of language as well as socioeconomic barriers that stem from differing backgrounds and upbringing. It’s also softer, it’s different from preaching, so I think it has a special power to break through boundaries. So, for example, in China they have extensive censorship of the internet, they are prohibited from viewing YouTube and Facebook and a lot of different other methods of coming into contact with various types of important information. But now they’ve found ways around that, to find out the information that they want. And within all of this information, I think music is very special, because through music — for our Chinese fans at least, a lot of them find out about Taiwanese history through listening to Chthonic’s music. It’s different from a lecture, reading theoretical books or just learning from history lessons to get to know Taiwan’s current state. A lot of the Chinese fans that I know came to know Taiwan’s history and came to understand it through Chthonic’s music.
Index: What are the pressures in speaking about taboo subjects like being less reliant on China?
Lim: In Taiwan, when you talk about more ‘taboo’ subjects, actually there aren’t really any taboo subjects because we are a free and open country. So when you talk about these things, such as in China, well, in China they just won’t report on it but in Taiwan it is okay. For example, if you talk about Free Tibet, or supporting the freedom of the Chinese people to pursue democracy. There are peculiar groups in Taiwan that are close to China that will give you some pressure, but in terms of this particular question, when you talk about things like “cutting ties and being less reliant on China”, it’s not really prohibited since most people in Taiwan believe that Taiwan is different from China and is a separate country, so when you talk about being less reliant on China actually there isn’t much pressure there. Things that will cause more pressure might be like supporting Free Tibet, or supporting human rights group within China, or things having to do with democracy in China, or protection of legal rights, there might be some pressure such as through verbal threats, they might call us, or perhaps through the internet we receive threats. Or like previously when Chthonic toured abroad, due to my activities with Free Tibet and support of Chinese democracy, there have been some self-proclaimed Chinese students that have given us pressure, threatening that we should not perform on stage otherwise they were going to kill us or something like that. There are a lot of vocal threats, but we won’t be afraid to talk about these kinds of things because of that.
Index: Do you feel like you deal with censorship more so with your music career or political career?
Lim: Actually, I don’t feel strongly either way; maybe it’s because of my personality, but I don’t think that in either my music or political career I’ve felt censorship because in Taiwan we are fundamentally a more free country and so there isn’t any systemic pressure, they won’t really do anything. However, in reality in business or industry, in terms of doing business, in music you can clearly feel there’s some media outlets, or some music businesses, or events or festivals, if they have closer ties with China or if the group responsible for it is on friendly terms with China they won’t want you to go talking those types of things. So on a certain level, in my music career, in Taiwan, in the entertainment or music industry, there is some degree of pressure, but I feel like for Chthonic this isn’t a huge issue because the Chinese market is not our primary market so we aren’t really inconvenienced by it by any means.
Index: Which political leaders influence you during the songwriting process? What artists/bands do you go to for inspiration?
Lim: For me, when I write songs a lot of my inspiration doesn’t come from political leaders, rather it comes from bands and artists I like, such as some Taiwanese singers like Yu-Tian, Shen Wen Chen, Yeh Qi-Tian, and some that I used to really love such as Chen Yi-Lang, as well as Taiwanese Opera. In addition there are also foreign metal bands like Slayer, I really like Slayer, Pantera, Emperor, these are all bands I really love. In terms of political leaders, I really respect and admire, the one that stands out is the Dalai Lama.
Index: How do you think gatherings like the Chthonic 20th anniversary show can help make people more politically aware?
Lim: I think in terms of soft events, such as our 20th anniversary, the primary focus is still as a fun event, to let everyone have a good time, that is its nature is in entertainment, in the excitement that people get from listening to metal, so I think at its core it is still to let everyone have a good time. Now in terms of politics, I feel like it depends on the circumstance. Of course, we would hope that our fans or people that come to our shows can feel and understand some of our own political views, but the music is still the focal point when we hold these events, and for the political aspect, we just allow this exchange to happen and hope it inspires some people and that’s it.
Index: What do you think the similarities and differences are between the two types of gatherings? How do you work to bridge that gap between the two?
Lim: I think that no matter if it’s a political gathering or a musical gathering, the most important thing is the situation, it’s different from going to a lecture. For example, at a political gathering, I feel like a successful political gathering it is important to consider the logos and ethos of the audience members, whereas in terms of musical gatherings, obviously it is heavier on the ethos because most audience members at a metal show just want to have a good time, to enjoy the music. They’re not going to be analysing your lyrics or picking apart the musical or its composition. However, in political gatherings I feel like the rationale of the audience must be taken into more consideration because the people in the audience are there to logically analyse your presentation. However, I feel that in political gatherings the emotional aspect is still very important, as we can’t focus purely on logic. So how are you going to address [these political issues] with reference to the land, to history, to the people, to the relationships between the people, how are you going to call on that, to touch these emotions and to touch the people and to inspire them to rally with you? I think this is very important.
Index: How has music helped you express your misgivings about the Taiwanese government?
Lim: Actually, our music rarely expresses our misgivings about the Taiwanese government. Our music is focused primarily on Taiwanese mythology, history, legends…oh and some are ghost stories, so actually we don’t really express ‘misgivings about the Taiwanese government’. On the contrary, our music fans will express their own anger towards the government through our songs and at our concerts, sometimes even more so than we ourselves, which is pretty interesting.
Index: What kind of methods do you plan to use to promote free expression in Taiwan?
Lim: I haven’t really thought of methods to promote free expression in Taiwan, I think that Taiwan is already a country that should have freedom of expression, so to protect this freedom is to protect Taiwanese human rights and related institutions, so in this aspect, in interactions between Taiwan and China, or Taiwan and other countries where freedom of expression is suppressed, we need to have a greater precaution in our approach, like right now between Taiwan and China. Although Taiwan itself is already a country that has freedom of speech, because we are too close to China, there have been compromises, some of which I mentioned earlier, such as in the entertainment business, music industry, and publication industry, there has been some self-censorship in order to appeal to the Chinese market, and so I think that if we are going to promote free expression in Taiwan, one of the most important things is to place freedom of expression at the forefront when we are interacting or collaborating with other countries, to have it written into the contracts and so forth so that we do not compromise the value of the free expression that we already have.
Index on Censorship has teamed up with the producers of an award-winning documentary about Mali’s musicians, They Will Have To Kill Us First, to create the Music in Exile Fund to support musicians facing censorship globally. You can donate here, or give £10 by texting “BAND61 £10” to 70070.
For over a decade the Belarus Free Theatre have performed underground in Minsk, with audiences subject to raids and arrests while, exiled from Belarus, the theatre’s directors plan their plays via Skype. But an online revolution has seen Belarus Free Theatre, and its new project the Ministry of Counterculture, bring their form of underground activism to the masses in 2015. Index on Censorship spoke to Belarus Free Theatre founder Natalia Kaliada and managing editor of the Ministry of Counterculture Georgie Weedon.
Seeing in their 10th anniversary in 2015, Belarus Free Theatre’s continued existence is in many ways a source of shame to EU and US politicians, the theatre’s founder Natalia Kalaida told Index. The underground theatre group was set up in 2005 by Kaliada and her husband Nikolai Khalezin, in response to censorship and oppression by the Belarusian regime.
The group immediately became a target for the authorities because of their criticism of Aleksandr Lukashenko, and plays touching on taboo subjects like mental health and sexuality. However, despite repeated arrests, brutal interrogations and harassment by the KGB (one of the few intelligence services to keep that sinister Cold War name) they continued to perform underground, using apartments, basements, cafés and forests as their stages.
“We started from just an idea, not having any support,” says Kaliada. But doing nothing was not an option, she says.
“When your friends are kidnapped, killed, thrown into jail, tortured, there is no way for you to just stay and observe. I don’t have such a luxury to be apolitical, and I don’t have time to spend doing entertainment theatre, it has to have a meaning behind it.”
Audience members in Belarus first have to search on social media for a phone number, name and the title of a show. They then call that number to leave their details, and when the theatre has a place to perform, receive a phone call or text message telling them to come to a meeting point, from where they taken to the performance.
“Usually we advise our audience to bring their passports, so if there is a police or KGB raid, people will have less time to spend in the police department while police are identifying them,” says Kaliada. “That’s why we always say our audience back in Belarus is the bravest audience in the world.”
“It’s a very big step for audience members, for us it’s clear what we do and it’s our choice, why we do this theatre, but it’s amazing to have such an audience – every time we get on Skype from London to say hello to our audience, we will ask how many are new, and it will be around 40 percent. Which is just amazing.”
Via Skype is now the only way Kalaida can greet her Belarusian audience. During a tour abroad in 2011, Kalaida and other members of the theatre learned that if they returned to Belarus they would be imprisoned.
This, however, did not stop Belarus Free Theatre. They now have London headquarters – at the Young Vic Theatre – and underground Minsk headquarters. They conceive of new projects and direct their actors in Minsk via Skype, where the company continues to perform in secret locations.
“We survive not because of support, unfortunately, of many different governments, but despite all difficulties that we’re facing on a daily basis,” says Kaliada. The group have now staged 27 productions in over 30 countries.
Having protested the Belarusian regime for over a decade, the theatre have now started to use their unique mix of art, performance and political protest to take on dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the world, by teaching others their unique model of activism.
“The major point for us last year was to move from an idea of us talking about only Belarus, to start to frame the message that it’s not possible to talk only about one particular country or issue, because then you forget about global context,” Kaliada told Index.
The power of this was exemplified in a concert the theatre organised in 2015. Hosted in London but featuring Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian artists, as well as many well-known names from around the world, the event was watched online by over half a million people.
“It was that unique evening where you understand that it’s necessary for us to connect all those geopolitical doors and to explain to dictators and authoritarian regimes that, with the help of the internet, we could become even bigger than us physically present in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine,” Kalaida said.
“So we continue to say to those dictators, when we go underground, it’s more dangerous for you – because underground doesn’t have any boundaries.”
Belarus Free Theatre’s new project, the Ministry of Counterculture, also aims to harness the power of the internet, art and activism to effect social change.
Published in both English and Russian, the online platform was launched as part of the theatre’s 10 year anniversary, and the site features interviews, videos, photo stories, and news about art and activism around the world.
“It was launched to broadcast and engage with lots of issues – issues that the Belarus Free Theatre are engaged with, but also other issues too,” says Georgie Weedon, managing editor of the Ministry of Counterculture.” But part of the story of Ministry of Counterculture is to look forward. “The Belarus Free Theatre has achieved incredible things in the last 10 years, and we hope the Ministry of Counterculture will become part of the next 10 years and beyond.”
Watching the surreal videos of the police takeover of Turkish newspaper Zaman last week — inside the building police officers played cards behind the newspaper’s reception desk and devoured plates of baklava in the cafeteria as journalists looked on — I was reminded of the events of the past eight years that so definitively transformed Turkey’s media scene.
The change happened so gradually over the years that many missed the transformation. But journalism in Turkey has turned into a scene of feuds and long-held hostilities. The job description of a Turkish journalist now includes the ability to help lock up journalists from the opposite political camp.
Over the past eight years, a spate of legal cases have altered Turkey’s media environment beyond return. The most recent of these was the 2014 Selam Tevhid case, in which prosecutors intended to jail Turkey’s pro-government journalists who were accused of being foreign spies and aiding terrorist organisations.
But it was the OdaTV case of 2011 that had the greatest impact on journalism. The outcome silenced the popular and populist voice of secular nationalists and spread fear and paranoia to all media workers.
Earlier, in September 2008, after selling off his secular-nationalist broadcaster KanalTurk, Turkish journalist Tuncay Özkan was detained by Turkish police in relation to the Ergenekon investigation. He was detained in the Silivri Penitentiary, Europe’s largest penal facility where he would await the outcome of his trial for more than two years. One of Özkan‘s friends, Mustafa Balbay, the Ankara correspondent of Cumhuriyetnewspaper, was also imprisoned in the same trial.
To many observers, Özkan’s and Balbay’s ideas were old fashioned, parochial and too nationalistic, views that somehow defined the way they were treated in the public sphere. There was little international reaction when Özkan’s KanalTurk‘s staunchly secularist and republican editorial line was changed overnight. The same broadcaster now defended polar opposite views.
After five years in detention, Özkan was sentenced in April 2013 to life imprisonment for being part of Ergenekon, a “ultra-secularist organisation that plotted a coup”. Balbay was luckier: he received 34 years and 8 months. Again, there was little world reaction to this surreal turn of events, but, in Turkey, many progressive voices applauded the verdicts, seeing them as part of what they ominously called the country’s “normalisation”.
Throughout 2008, Turkey’s media sphere changed enormously through these trials that made the criminalisation of Turkey’s media part of the journalistic occupation. More than a dozen journalists were detained in the OdaTV trials, accused of being members of the “media arm” of the terrorist organisation Ergenekon, named after Turks’ founding myth. There were so many arrests that the prison’s sports hall needed to be transformed into a courtroom to accommodate all the defendants.
Many of Turkey’s progressives bought into the idea that what was happening was a good thing. Once “ultra-secularist coup plotters” would be placed behind bars, Turkey would finally achieve its long-awaited “liberal consensus”. Those who opposed the arrests were branded reactionaries who should have known better.
According to the newspapers, Turkey was cleaning its bowels: there were lone dissenting voices but the general reaction to the prison verdicts was that all the bad, radical people were finally getting what they had long deserved.
The normalisation discourse was built on the idea that Turkey needed a “liberal consensus” where the extreme elements of politics and the media needed to leave the public sphere to moderates of all political persuasions. Thanks to this, Turkey would be able to become “a model democracy” in the Middle East.
As the trials continued, and more than 40 Kurdish journalists were imprisoned because of their alleged ties to terrorist groups, Turkey was represented as its most liberal self in the international scene — what made it democratic, the argument ran, was the trials themselves. In fact, Turkey was being its most illiberal self, having the highest number of journalists in prison at the time. In 2012, just a year before the anti-government Gezi Park protests, the country was being held up as a paradigm. A Reporters Without Borders report from that year, read: “With a total of 72 media personnel currently detained, of whom at least 42 journalists and four media assistants are being held in connection with their media work, Turkey is now the world’s biggest prison for journalists – a sad paradox for a country that portrays itself a regional democratic model.”
Worryingly, the Ergenekon and OdaTV trials moulded a new type of journalist who took pleasure in the jailing of his colleagues. After journalist and IPI World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Sener and his colleague Ahmet Sik were detained in 2011, they were conveniently added to the list of coup plotters. When journalist and editor Soner Yalcin was arrested in February 2011 along with other OdaTv journalists, this was seen as a blow to Turkish nationalism, rather than journalism. In the fight with nationalism, the locking up of nationalist journalists was seen as a necessary evil.
By 2011, the process that had begun in 2008 reached new heights, when the character assassination of journalists became commonplace in the Turkish press. It was now acceptable to publish transcripts of phone conversations between journalists who might have been plotting a coup.
A more troubling development was the rise of a new genre: more and more journalists devoted all their work to making incriminating accusations against their colleagues. The success of a journalist’s work was now defined by the outcome of trials he had supported with his columns: if he managed to get his colleagues convicted through defaming their character, he was promoted.
No political group was able to resist the attraction of this new, adrenaline-ridden form of journalism and, most alarmingly, readers who followed those developments, started taking joy in this spectacle, a development that would surely fascinate Michel Foucault. Journalism became meta: newspaper front pages tallied which journalists were locked up and which were freed. There was fresh material every other month: the political identities of imprisoned journalists changed but the end result was the same.
It is now clear how Turkey’s fake “liberal consensus” failed spectacularly. However unpalatable progressives found them, Turkey’s secularist-nationalists, socialists and communists defended their right to exist in a society where they constitute a historical phenomenon alongside Turkey’s conservatives. Their imprisonment in the name of normalisation was unacceptable and immoral.
Instead of a liberal consensus, what Turkey needs is a proper dissensus: the coexistence of these different political camps.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
A week and 2,611 signatures later, our work denouncing the Turkish authorities for the takeover of Zaman — a formerly independent publication once critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime — is far from over.
Leading UK newspaper editors and journalists including Tony Gallagher (The Sun) and Paul Dacre (Daily Mail) have already joined journalists Tim Stanley, Peter Oborne and James Ball — among others, including artist and author Molly Crabapple, historian and author Tom Holland and Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) — to condemn the seizure by signing Index on Censorship’s open letter. If you haven’t already, please join them.
The call to action reads: “Today Turkey seized one of the country’s leading newspapers. In so doing, Turkey has confirmed that it is no longer committed to a free press, which is the bedrock of any democratic society.”
In the days following the attack on Zaman with tear gas and water cannons, Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was greeted in Brussels with offers of billions of dollars in aid, visa-free travel for Turks in Europe and renewed prospects for joining the European Union. In return, Turkey says it will help Europe manage its refugee crisis. As talks continue, so must our efforts to ensure the most basic standards of democracy and a free press are upheld in Turkey.
As Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project shows, Zaman is just the latest in a long line of media violations in Turkey. In the wake of the takeover, the crackdown looks set to continue.
We must ensure Turkish authorities are held to account for their actions. Start now, with the small act of signing the petition calling for the court to reverse its decision and show solidarity and support afflicted journalists.
Join a group of concerned organisations to let the National Union of Students (NUS) and its affiliated student unions know that they must revise their policies.
We are deeply concerned by the increasing attempts from NUS and affiliated unions to silence dissenters – including feminists, apostates, LGBTI rights campaigners, anti-racists, anti-fascists and anti-Islamists – through its use of no-platform and safe space policies.
We stand against all prejudice and discrimination. We agree that free speech does not mean giving bigots a free pass. A defence of free speech includes the right and moral imperative to challenge, oppose and protest against bigoted views.
Educational institutions must be a place for the exchange and criticism of all ideas – even those deemed unpalatable by some – providing they don’t incite violence against peoples or communities. Bigoted ideas are most effectively defeated by open debate, backed up by ethics, reason and evidence.
The student body is not homogeneous; there will be differences of opinion among students. The NUS’s restrictive policies infringe upon the right of students to hear and challenge dissenting and opposing views.
We, therefore, call on the NUS to revise its no-platform and safe space policies to facilitate freedom of expression and thought, rather than restrict it.
Also tweet “I call on @nusuk to revise safe space and no platform policies to facilitate not restrict free expression and thought”, take part in the thunderclap campaign, or email this message to the NUS at office@nus.org.uk.
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”.
“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.
From a journalist who trains women to tell the story of Syria’s civil war and a comedian who uses her routines to campaign for women’s rights in Indonesia, to a women-led campaigning group taking on the fight against internet censorship in Pakistan, the shortlist for the 2016 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards showcases women with leadership and bravery.
On International Women’s Day we celebrate the amazing women on our shortlist.
While many fled, Syrian-native journalist Zaina Erhaim returned to her war-ravaged country in 2013 to ensure those left behind were not forgotten. She is now one of the few female journalists braving the twin threat of violence from both IS and Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
Arts nominee Sakdiyah Ma’ruf is a stand-up comedian from Indonesia whose routines challenge Islamic fundamentalism. Born to a conservative Muslim family in Java, Ma’ruf went against her father’s wishes and started using comedy to speak about religious-based violence and extremism, ethnic extremism and xenophobia, as well as fear, terror and violence against women.
Artist Tania Bruguera was arrested after an attempt to stage her performance piece #YoTambienExijo in Havana in late 2014. Mounted soon after the apparent thaw in US-Cuban relations, Bruguera’s piece offered members of the public the chance of one minute of “censor-free” expression in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución.
Campaigning nominee nineteen-year-old Vanessa Berhe continues to fight for the release of her uncle, journalist Seyoum Tsehaye, who has been imprisoned in Eritrea for the last 15 years. She also launched the campaign Free Eritrea to draw the world’s attention to a little-reported country with one of the worst track records for free speech.
Lina Attalah, chief editor, is just one of the women and men — friends and journalists — who in 2013 founded an independent news collective Mada Masr after newspaper Egypt Independent was censored into bankruptcy. Mada Masr was launched as a media co-operative that aims to hold those in power accountable.
Bolo Bhi are a digital campaigning group who have orchestrated an impressive ongoing fight against attempts to censor the internet in Pakistan. The all-women management team have launched internet freedom programmes, published research papers, tirelessly fought for government transparency and run numerous innovative digital security training programmes.
Belarus Free Theatre, co-founded by Natalia Kaliada, have been using their creative and subversive art to protest the dictatorial rule of Aleksandr Lukashenko for a decade. Despite pressure from authorities since their inception, the group thrived underground, with performances in apartments, basements and forests despite continued arrests and brutal interrogations. In 2011, while on tour, they were told they were unable to return home. Refusing to be silenced, the group set up headquarters in London and continued to direct projects in Belarus.
This year, the Index awards gala on 13 April will be hosted by stand-up comedian and writer Shazia Mirza, whose outspoken and taboo-busting comedy explores Islamic fundamentalism and women’s rights. Mirza is fresh from her sell-out London run and in the midst of her current UK tour.
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.
“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.
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