5 Sep 2016 | mobile, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
Kaya Genç will be speaking at upcoming events in London on 12 and 15 September
In his new book, Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey, Index on Censorship magazine contributing editor Kaya Genç explores the country’s struggles through the eyes of Gezi Park protesters, pro-government conservatives, artists, censored journalists and more.
“This is your future … if your generation does not fight for it, it will be a disastrous one.”
Recently I took a walk down Istanbul’s central Istiklal Street. Every day here crowds of pedestrians float around in small groups, surrounded by the cries of street vendors and the ding-dongs of tramvay, Istiklal’s beloved old wooden streetcar that travels up and down this populous shopping quarter from seven in the morning to ten thirty at night. When I feel overwhelmed by this crowded city I wander by the Bosphorus Strait and watch the reflections of the sun on the slow waves of the Marmara Sea. But on lonelier days I prefer to mix with the crowds of Istiklal and come across new fashions, new people, new ideas. On that Friday I came all the way to the middle of Istiklal, to a square called Galatasaray, to sit down and enjoy a cup of strong black Turkish coffee. A little bell rang as I opened the door to a small and serene coffee shop. Taking a seat, I began listening to a song by the Kurdish singer Aynur on my headphones, and typed up the opening paragraph of a new chapter in my novel. I felt lucky to be living in such a beautiful and vibrant and history-filled city. As I wrote, I entered my fictional world and felt at peace.
At some point I looked up as the hand of a young man appeared silently against the thick glass of the coffee shop window. The hand banged the glass loudly, passionately, one, two, three times and I saw that he had company: a darkhaired youth carrying a bright flag that bore the colours red, yellow and green, which signalled Turkey’s Kurdish political movement. Seconds later, a group of high school students followed behind them and the crowd began to force its way into the shop, signs of panic discernible on their faces. A cup fell and broke. Almost immediately a cloud of smoke enveloped the first activist as the street leading to the square filled grimly with the outlines of heavily armed riot cops marching towards us in single file, chasing this small group of rebels. The barista instantly rushed to the doorway; in an attempt to save her customers from the swiftly approaching cloud of smoke and tear gas, she let the protestors inside, closed and locked the door, and took down the shutters. For a few moments, in the darkness, it seemed as if we were safe from harm – but that was before we realized the air conditioning was still working. It took 15 seconds for the interior of the five-square-metre room to fill with tear gas. If you have ever come into contact with tear gas you will know how every breath you take burns your insides, how your eyes sting – and my mind, filled with joy, ecstasy and serenity only three minutes ago, was now occupied by the question of whether I would survive this experience alive. Apparently, while I was travelling through my fictional world, a protest had kicked off in the adjacent square, which the police had forcefully suppressed.
It is a sign of where Turkey is today that nobody was really surprised. Young people are furious in Turkey. So far, the massive protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013, two years ago on that day, had been the most visible demonstration of this temperament. During a humid, anxious and violent month in Istanbul, it had seemed as if angry Turkish men and women were willing to sacrifice everything in order to change their country. Marching in solidarity in about 90 different locations, young people in Turkey attempted to stage a revolution and were ready to defend their right to protest even against thousands of heavily armed police officers. In epic scenes coloured by the sight of huge water cannons spraying water into protestors, the 20 days between 28 May and 15 June 2013 shook Turkey and, as I’ll show here, changed its political scene beyond return. It brought Turkey’s troubled and energetic political, cultural and artistic spheres right to the centre of the international stage. Events that defined the three years since Gezi – from the crisis in Syria to the rise of ISIS and to the changing relationships with the US and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) – were somewhat energized by the big boom effect Gezi has had on Turkey.
But the roots of this explosion of energy lay deeper, in the country Turkey was before it became ‘modern’.
Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey by Kaya Genç publishes on 6th October (£14.99, I.B.Tauris)
Upcoming events with Kaya Genç
12 September
Turkey beyond the headlines at Asia House
What can be made of recent events in Turkey where a coup attempt was stopped by people on the streets? Asia House is pleased to welcome acclaimed writer Kaya Genç, who currently lives in Istanbul and has been covering his country for the past decade. Genç will talk to Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine, about his forthcoming book Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey.
15 September
The State of Turkey with Kaya Genç, Ece Temelkuran and Daniel Trilling at London Review Bookshop
Join Index on Censorship magazine’s contributing editor Kaya Genç and fellow Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran for a discussion about the state of Turkey in the aftermath of the failed military coup. Editor of the New Humanist, and author of Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right, Daniel Trilling will chair the discussion about the past present, and future of Turkey at the London Review Bookshop on 15 September.
Index on Censorship magazine
Kaya Genç is a contributing editor to the magazine. Look for his piece in the next issue.
Order your full-colour print copy of our upcoming anonymity magazine special here, or take out a digital subscription from anywhere in the world via Exact Editions (just £18* for the year). Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide.
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Recent coverage of Turkey
Turkey: Charges must be dropped in high-profile trial of journalists following failed coup
Turkey: Losing the rule of law
Turkey’s continuing crackdown on the press must end
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
2 Sep 2016 | Albania, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Kosovo, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Turkey
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.
30 August 2016 – The home of veteran journalist and Index contributor Yavuz Baydar was raided by the police, the journalist reported via Twitter.
The raid came shortly after detention warrants were issued for 35 people including 27 journalists. As of 30 August, of the 27 journalists sought nine have been detained in Turkey while 18 other journalists are reportedly abroad.
Also read by Baydar: Turkey: Losing the rule of law
28 August 2016 – At around 10pm an unidentified individual threw a hand grenade at the house of Mentor Shala, the director of Kosovo’s public broadcaster RTK.
Shala and his family were inside at the time. No casualties were reported but according to the RTK director the explosion was strong and that it had shocked the whole neighbourhood.
Kosovo’s police are investigating the case, which is the second attack on national broadcaster RTK within a week. On 22 August 2016 an explosive device was thrown at the broadcaster’s headquarters.
President Hashim Thaci has condemned the attack. “Criminal attacks against media executives and their families threaten the privacy and freedom of speech, and at the same time seriously damage the image of Kosovo,” he told RTK.
Both attacks were claimed by a group called Rugovasit, which said in a written statement to RTK that the attack was “only a warning”.
Rugovasit blames RTK journalist Mentor Shala for only reporting the government’s perspective. “If he does not resign from RTK, his life is in danger,” they said.
27 August 2016 – Journalist and founder of news agency Novy Region, Alexander Shchetinin, was found dead in his apartment in Kiev.
The National Police confirmed in a statement that “a man with a gunshot wound to the head was discovered on the balcony”. He reportedly died between 8-9.30pm.
Police found cartridges, a gun and a letter at the scene. “The doors to the apartment were closed, the interior looks intact,” police reported.
“Until all the facts are established, until the examination and forensic examination is complete, we are investigating it as a murder,” said Kiev police chief Andrey Kryschenko. “The main lines of enquiry are suicide and connections with his professional activities.”
The Russian-born journalist had lived in the Ukrainian capital since 2005. He was often critical of the Russian government. In 2014, he refused Russian citizenship, later joined the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.
20 August 2016 – Faeces was poured onto the prominent Russian journalist Yulia Latynina, who works for independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and hosts a programme called Kod Dostupa at radio station Echo of Moscow.
According to Latynina, the incident took place close to the radio’s office at Novy Arbat in central Moscow. An unidentified individual in a motorcycle helmet perpetrated the attack, while his accomplice was waiting for him at a motorcycle nearby. The unidentified individuals fled the scene.
Latynina told Echo of Moscow that it was the 14th or the 15th time she has been attacked. She believes the assailants had been following her for a long time as they seemed to know her daily commute and where she parks her car.
Latynina also believes the incident is connected to her Novaya Gazeta investigations into billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Latynina’s investigations, Prigozhin has orchestrated mass trolling on opposition activists in Saint Petersburg.
22 August 2016 – A prosecutor has asked for a three-month prison sentence for Faig Amirli, the director of the newspaper Azadliq, Radio Free Europe’s Azerbaijan Service.
Amirli’s lawyer declared that his client is being charged for spreading national and religious hatred, along with promoting religious sects and disturbing public order by performing religious activities.
Amirli was detained by a group of unidentified individuals on 20 August. At the time, his whereabouts were unknown while his house was searched by the representatives of Grave Crimes Unit.
Police claim they found literature related to Fethullah Gülen, the alleged orchestrator of the attempted coup in Turkey, in Amirli’s car.
His arrest is considered part of a new crackdown in Azerbaijan ahead of the September’s constitutional referendum.
Also read: Azadliq: “We are working under the dual threat of government harassment and financial insecurity”
1 Sep 2016 | Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, Turkey, Turkey Statements
(Photos: Pen International)
On 2 September, the first hearing will take place in a trial concerning three former senior editors of Taraf daily newspaper, Ahmet Altan, Yasemin Çongar and Yıldıray Oğur; and two journalists, Mehmet Baransu and Tuncay Opçin. The undersigned organisations believe the trial to be politically motivated and call on the government to drop all charges against the accused and to immediately and unconditionally release Mehmet Baransu, who has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest on 2 March 2015.
The charges pre-date the 15 July coup attempt, which the undersigned organisations also condemned; however, this is a high profile trial of journalists following the declaration of the State of Emergency in Turkey, under which at least 100 journalists have been detained. This trial is therefore of particular significance, as it may shed light on how the courts will approach cases concerning the right to freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial under the state of emergency – even when not directly related to the coup attempt.
ARTICLE 19, Index on Censorship, EFJ, Norwegian Press Association, Norwegian Journalists’ Union, PEN Germany, Danish PEN, PEN International, and Wales PEN Cymru are attending the trial.
THE CHARGES
The charges are detailed in a 276 page indictment, which was accepted on 20 June 2016 by the Istanbul High Criminal Court, 16 months after the initiation of the investigation. All five journalists are facing charges of acquiring, destroying and divulging documents concerning the security of the state and its political interests, punishable by up to 50 years in prison. Baransu and Opçin are facing additional charges of ‘membership and administration of a terrorist organization’ and face a possible 75-year prison term.
The charges of acquiring, destroying and divulging state secrets against the five journalists concern the ‘Egemen Operation’ plan – an out-of-date military war plan to respond to a Greek invasion. As a prior judgment of the Turkish Constitutional Court affirms, Taraf did not publish state secrets regarding this operation. Moreover, it is hard to see how the document could be considered a state secret; the Egemen Operation Plan was declared no longer in use in 2007, prior to when it was allegedly acquired by the journalists. Of even greater concern,the plan was actually made public in 2011 by a Court, when it was published in an indictment related to another case.
The charges of membership and administration of a terrorist organisation against Baransu and Opcin, refer to alleged affiliation with the Gülenist Terror Organisation (Fetullahçı Terör Örgütü, FETÖ), the group that the Turkish government accuses of being behind the failed coup in July. The first official reference to this group as a terrorist movement was in an indictment in May 2015, and it was only added to the official list of outlawed terrorist organisations in Turkey in May 2016 – six years after the period to which the charges relate.
The defendants deny all the charges.
PROBLEMS WITH THE INDICTMENT
The indictment presented by the prosecutor is highly problematic, containing a number of procedural deficiencies. In addition, failing to establish the facts against the defendants, it includes information about several offences that bear no relation to the proceedings at issue; and levies accusations against the defendants that are not included in the charges. The deficiencies include:
• The indictment accuses the defendants of propaganda for a terrorist organisation; but brings no charges on these grounds, nor does it provide any facts to support this.
• 46 pages of the indictment have been copied directly from an entirely separate indictment against Cumhuriyet editors, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, who exposed illegal arms transfers by the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) into Syria and were sentenced to prison for five years for their reporting. The degree of direct reproduction is evident from the fact that one paragraph of the indictment even starts with the words ‘The Defendant Can Dündar’.
• Large parts of the indictment against the journalists focus on a series of controversial news reports, titled the ‘Balyoz (Sledgehammer) Coup Plan’, published in Taraf between 20-29 January 2010, about an alleged military coup to overthrow the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. However, the charges do not, in fact, relate to this story. Indeed, the indictment does not suggest Taraf’s decision to publish the Balyoz papers was criminal and Balyoz does not figure in the specific charges presented at all.
These deficiencies seriously undermine the credibility of the charges, increasing concerns that they are groundless and aimed at stifling opposition voices within Turkey.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL
It is well established that no restriction may be imposed on freedom of expression on the grounds of national security unless the government can demonstrate that the restriction is necessary in a democratic society to protect a legitimate national security interest. The burden of demonstrating the validity of the restriction rests with the government.
Moreover, any restriction on journalistic activity – in this case the charges brought against the journalists – must have the genuine purpose and demonstrable effect of protecting a legitimate national security interest. As noted, the alleged state secret, the Egemen Secret Operation Plan, had already been published prior to charges being brought by a court, undermining the assertion that charges of acquiring, destroying and divulging this plan are necessary to ensure state security. This is reinforced by the disproportionately high sentences sought against the defendants. Restrictions
must
meet
a
sort
of
proportionality
test,
whereby
the
benefit
in
terms
of
protecting
the
interest
must
be
greater
than
the
harm
caused
to
freedom
of
expression.
Additionally, national security concerns do not allow the government to waive the rule of law protections that are part of international law. This includes the right not to be arbitrarily detained and the right to be informed promptly of the charges against him or her. Mehmet Baransu, who has been held in pre-trial detention for 18 months, and had no charges served against him for a 15 month period, has had both of these rights violated.
We call upon the government of Turkey to drop the charges against the Taraf journalists. At a time when the Turkish government should be demonstrating its commitment to freedom of expression and the rule of law, it is pursuing highly questionable charges that seem to be aimed at stifling legitimate government criticism.
SIGNATORIES
ARTICLE 19
Index on Censorship
European Federation of Journalists
Norwegian Press Association
Norwegian Journalists’ Union
PEN Germany
My Media
PEN International
Welsh PEN Cymru
PEN UK
Related articles:
Turkey: Losing the rule of law
Ece Temelkuran: Turkey’s drive to make theatre “suitable”
Turkey’s continuing crackdown on the press must end
23 Aug 2016 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
In an extract from her new book, Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy, journalist and author Ece Temelkuran discusses the role of the Turkish ministry of culture in censoring theatre productions. Temelkuran will be speaking at Waterstones Trafalgar Square on 20 Sept.
In 2013, the Ministry of Culture began to evaluate its subsidies to private theatres under the criterion of being “suitable with regard to public decency”. This enforcement arose as part of the Turkey Art Association (TÜSAK), which was put forward in a bill advocating the audition and support of art associations affiliated with the state. In this way, the legal foundation for state-imposed censorship was laid.
For the evaluation of private theatre companies’ grant requests to the Ministry of Culture, submission of the play’s script was made obligatory. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was removed from the State Theatre repertoire in 2014.
In December 2014, Sevket Demirkaya, who had previously held positions such as wrestling referee and municipal police chief, was appointed Director of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Theatre Company. In 2013, the Ministry of Culture cut off its funding to the company of Genco Erkal, one of the most acclaimed stage personalities in Turkey, for supporting the Gezi protests. The Directorate General of State Opera and Ballet prohibited the wearing of certain garments, including leggings, in October 2014.
Theatre wasn’t the only thing Erdogan had a beef with, naturally. He was also passionate about sculpture. On 8 January 2011, during election preparations in Kars – a place the whole world is familiar with thanks to Orhan Pamuk’s novel Snow – he was once again yelling, “Freak show!”
The freak show in question was an enormous statue. The mayor, a member of his own party, was having a peace statue built in the city bordering Armenia, a statue that could be seen from Erivan. The work, by one of Turkey’s most renowned sculptors, Mehmet Aksoy, had just been completed when it turned out that it didn’t suit Erdogan’s tastes. A few months after Erdogan appraised the sculpture as a “freak show”, it was demolished in spite of every court ruling, and at quite a high cost. The worst part about it all was the cry of “the people” as they set about its destruction:
“Allahu akbar!”
I suppose that the intellectuals who were irked when I suggested that sometimes Turkey was like Afghanistan with a nicer shop window, who thought it “elitist and Jacobin”, probably shared my apprehensions on the day they witnessed that savage and wanton destruction.
Erdogan was also interested in music. That was why the work of Fazıl Say, a world-renowned composer and pianist who was critical of the AKP administration, was immediately removed from the repertoire of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra.
Perhaps the eeriest of these persecutions over the years came in December 2011, from the Minister of Internal Affairs. The Minister said: “The backyard of terrorism, walking around the back, and by backyard this could be Istanbul, could be Izmir, Bursa, Vienna, Germany, London, wherever – it could be a podium at the university, an association, a non-governmental organisation … They look like they’re just singing but they say something to the audience in between three songs, squeeze in a few lovely words. Whatever you take from it, however you understand it. They’re making art on that stage. What can you do? We are not against art, but we have to weed these out with the meticulousness of a surgeon.”
I wish the best of luck to the translator who has to translate these words. I hope readers, too, will manage to keep their wits intact after so much of the government’s poor self-expression.
In the wake of these declarations that signalled a new onslaught of custody and persecution, artists came up with a parody petition:
“Ban art! Put art within the scope of terrorist activity!”
This is an extract from Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy (Zed Books, 2016) by Ece Temelkuran, which is available now.
Ece Temelkuran will be participating in two upcoming events:
15 Sep: The State of Turkey with Kaya Genç, Ece Temelkuran and Daniel Trilling
Join Index on Censorship magazine’s contributing editor Kaya Genç and fellow Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran for a discussion about the state of Turkey in the aftermath of the failed military coup.
20 Sep: Author Ece Temelkuran on the struggles that have shaped Turkey
Join Index on Censorship’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg as she presents an evening with award-winning journalist and novelist Ece Temelkuran to discuss her latest book Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
