8 Aug 2016 | Events, mobile
Award-winning Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran will discuss her latest release at Waterstones Trafalgar Square on 20 September
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.
Temelkuran will talk about how her beloved home country’s struggles and tragedies have shaped Turkey and how taking on the AKP government caused her to lose her job as a journalist. She also sees hope in the Gezi Park protests of 2013, the HDP party’s 2015 electoral breakthrough and in the kindness of the country’s ordinary people. Also featuring the Middle East correspondent for the Independent, Patrick Cockburn.
When: Tuesday 20 September, 7pm
Where: Waterstones, Trafalgar Square (map)
Tickets: £2 from Waterstones. And also available in-store or via telephone 0207 839 4411
8 Aug 2016 | Events, mobile
Turkish writers Kaya Genç and Ece Temelkuran will join Daniel Trilling to discuss the state of Turkey
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.
Genç’s Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey is newly published by I.B. Tauris and Temelkuran’s Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy was recently published by Zed Books.
When: Thursday 15 September, 7pm
Where: London Review Bookshop (map)
Tickets: £10 from the London Review Bookshop
6 Aug 2016 | Europe and Central Asia, mobile, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
Bülent Korucu, former columnist for Zaman and former editor-in-chief of Aksiyon.
As I’ve been writing for months now, the job that runs the highest risk in Turkey is, without a shred of doubt, journalism.
So you can imagine my sense of bitterness when I woke yesterday to the unanswered cries of despair from a teenage boy trying to save his mother from unlawful imprisonment.
“I am the son of journalist Bülent Korucu,” Tarık Korucu tweeted on 2 August. “Since my father is not found, my mother has been taken hostage for six days now. Please, I beg you, do not stay silent on this unlawful act.”
Hacer Korucu, who is the mother of five children, was taken into police custody on 31 July when the Korucu family flat was raided. The search was part of the crackdown on 42 journalists, many of whom were affiliated with Zaman daily. Bülent was on the list. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Earlier, Tarık tweeted that the police refused to allow his mother to take her one-year-old baby with her. They told his elder brother: “We will narrow the circle around you until your father comes out, and you will be next.”
Tarık’s despair, which was heartwrenching, reached a new low yesterday. He sent out “help us, speak out for us!” messages to a number of parliamentary deputies and journalists like Can Dündar. Only one deputy, Mahmut Tanal from the main opposition, CHP, reacted. Large chunks of the Turkish media are too busy these days attacking their colleagues and outlets in the West. Many Turkish columnists are joining the government chorus which demonises those in the media who are supposed to be Gülen affiliated, while ignoring the Korucu family’s plight in a mood of revenge.
Only brave, independent news sites like Diken, T24 and the Platform for Independent Journalism that reported the case. The rest maintain a deadly, acrimonious silence.
Yesterday, Korucu’s children were told they could go and visit their mother if they could find a lawyer in the ultra-conservative eastern city of Erzurum. This was impossible. “We can not find a lawyer for my mom,” Tarık tweeted. “Unfortunately, lawyers are done for as the rule of law collapsed over here. There isn’t a lawyer with a conscience in this big city.”
I am left speechless. And we still don’t know the grounds on which Hacer is kept in custody.
As of Friday, 42 journalists have been detained since the coup attempt. This brings the total number of jailed journalists in Turkey up 77, possibly the highest number of any country in the world.
In addition, we learned yesterday of two Kurdish reporters arrested in Yüksekova, in Hakkari province.
Korucu family’s tragedy is only a small part of an immense drama, leaving me in no doubt that journalism is the riskiest profession in Turkey.
According to European Journalism Observatory: “More than 100 Turkish media outlets have been closed, their assets seized by the government. Critical newspapers including Yarina Bakış, Özgür Düşünce, Meydan and Taraf, as well as the news site Haberdar and pro-Kurdish news agency DİHA have ceased publishing.”
A key aspect in this updated data has escaped the attention of my Western colleagues. An endless stream of seizures and the demonisation of the media mean that hundreds of journalists who do not end up in jail find themselves out in the streets, marked as “toxic” simply because they are abiding by the principle of remaining critical of power structures. Many will never again find a job in parts of the “central” media, which has been invaded by the culture of self-censorship.
Many of us journalists have lost outlets we’ve worked and are left without income. Many are doomed to either starvation or obedience to the powers that be. We have no chance of being employed in decent conditions unless a miracle happens or we receive mercy from our freedom-hating rulers. This is the real tragedy that has swooped over journalism in Turkey.
A version of this article originally appeared on Suddeutsche Zeitung. It is posted here with the permission of the author.
More Turkey Uncensored
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Silence is the enemy of democracy
Tough times ahead for Turkey
Dunja Mijatović : Turkey must treat media freedom for what it really is – a test of democracy
Turkey rounding up reporters, editors and columnists
Turkey’s rising censorship: How did we get here?
Erdogan is ruling Turkey by decree
The largest clampdown in modern Turkey’s history
Escalation in the clampdown on Turkey’s media and academia
Mapping Media Freedom: A disastrous week for Turkish journalism
As the purge deepens in Turkey, is a self-coup underway?
Critical Turkish media is cracking under pressure
A noble profession has turned into a curse
“Judicial coup” sends clear warning to Turkey’s remaining independent journalists
Can Dündar: Turkey is “the biggest prison for journalists in the world”
Turkey’s film festivals face a narrowing space for expression
4 Aug 2016 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan interviewed on Italy’s RAI News 24
Turkey’s third post-coup week has been full of uncertainties, suspicion and concern. As of Wednesday morning there were 1,297 individuals subject to an international travel ban, among them 35 journalists and 51 lawyers.
A developing rift between Ankara and Rome illustrates what Turks can expect from the government-controlled and -aligned media: a moulding of the truth to fit the words and agenda of the country’s president.
In a combative interview with Italy’s RAI News 24, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan challenged the Italian government’s investigation of his son Bilal. He warned that the incident would put Turkey’s relations with Italy “in difficulty”.
“If my son had entered Italy, he would perhaps be arrested. What is this? My son, who is a bright man, is accused of money laundering. Instead of hassling my son, Italy should deal with its own mafia,” he said angrily.
His anger spilled over to the city of Bologna as well. “In that city they call me a dictator,” Erdogan said. “They organise pro-PKK demonstrations. Why don’t they [Italian authorities] step in? This issue will jeopardise our relations with Italy.”
Later, Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, responded on Twitter: ”In this country the judges respond to the laws and the Italian constitution, not the Turkish president. It’s called ‘rule of law.'”
It’s unnerving how this not-so-diplomatic sparring played out in the Turkish press. While Erdogan’s words were widely quoted on TV channels, the Italian prime minister’s reaction was missing. As media-monitoring organisations pointed out, half of reality was missing, self-censored by subservient outlets under the president’s thumb.
Erol Önderoğlu, Reporters Without Borders’ Turkey representative, asked via Twitter whether or not Turkish TV channels would consider reporting Renzi’s “rule of law” comments. Sadly, he knew they wouldn’t.
It goes further, though. As if self-censorship wasn’t enough, the government moved to block access to articles about the money laundering allegations against Bilal Erdogan following the RAI interview. Cumhuriyet — one of the handful of independent media outlets remaining — reported that Diken and Gazeteport — already under the eye of the government — were sites that had their coverage censored.
At the same time, behind the smokescreen of a subservient press, the Erdogan administration has turned its oppressive measures on Kurdish journalists. Police in the Karayazı District of Erzurum Province detained Mehmet Arslan, a reporter for Dicle News Agency (DİHA). Turkish telecommunications regulator, TIB, blocked access to the website of JİNHA news agency, which mainly covers Kurdish issues.
Journalists on social media were warning authorities that there was a high risk that a journalist in detention, Haşim Söylemez, who recently had two successive brain surgeries, could face health issues in jail.
A colleague of his, briefly arrested with Söylemez, tweeted that “he had a hard time even standing up in the cell”.
Önderoğlu is as deeply concerned as I am about the coming weeks. He said in next four months at least 149 journalists will be facing courts and, due to emergency rule practices, there will be many legal inquiries underway about the others, mainly based on the Anti-Terror Law and the Criminal Code.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
