CHP Commission Monitoring Media Crackdown Visits Zaman And Taraf

A commission set up by the Republican People's Party (CHP) to monitor the government's crackdown on critical media visited the Zaman and Taraf dailies on Wednesday.

Commission members Enis Berberoğlu, CHP deputy chairman and former editor-in-chief of the Hürriyet daily, and CHP İstanbul deputy Eren Erdem visited the Zaman offices and gave a statement to the press with Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı.

Berberoğlu explained that the CHP considers addressing infringements of press freedom a matter of honor and that the commission is visiting media organizations that fight against what he called a civilian coup and an oppressive regime. He also said Barış Yarkadaş, a CHP İstanbul deputy and member of the commission, would visit Taraf that day, and planned to soon visit the Birgün and Yurt dailies as well.

Referring to a raid on Zaman on Dec. 14, 2014, in which both Dumanlı and Samanyolu TV Group General Manager Hidayet Karaca were detained, Berberoğlu said: “This visit is meaningful for us because it was in this building that my dear friend [Dumanlı] was detained, in but one example of the oppression of the media,” calling the act a constitutional crime.

Berberoğlu stated that the aim of the committee is to prevent the creation of a society in which the press is oppressed and called free media an indispensable component of democracy.

The commission, consisting of CHP deputies with backgrounds in journalism, was formed in response to a police raid on the İpek Media Group on Tuesday. The raid came just a few days after Twitter whistleblower Fuat Avni said the government was planning to conduct operations against media outlets that are critical of the government and, by extension, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), in an attempt to silence them before the Nov. 1 snap election.

During his visit to the Taraf daily, Yarkadaş expressed solidarity with the paper, which is persistently targeted for its coverage of government misconduct. After meeting with the paper's owner, Başar Arslan, and publishing coordinator, Cüneyt Oruç, Yarkadaş made a statement to a group of reporters and likened AK Party governance to the rule of Adolf Hitler.

"Hitler had a minister, Joseph Goebbels, tasked with producing propaganda capable of convincing the public to follow Hitler's ill-minded policies. Goebbels instructed members of the press, saying, 'Journalists should act like a piano keys. We [in the Hitler administration] must be able to hear what we wish to hear when we play the keys.' This is the environment that the AKP [AK Party] is trying to create," Yarkadaş noted.

Later in the day, the CHP commission presented a three-page report to the Turkish Journalists' Association (TGC) about the pressure faced by Turkish newspapers and media groups.

Speaking at the TGC, Berberoğlu said the report was prepared in less than 48 hours at the end of their visits to İpek Media Group, Cumhuriyet, Sözcü, Taraf, Yurt, Birgün and Zaman newspapers which are currently under government pressure.

He said these news outlets face pressure in the form of disclaimers and lawsuits filed against them over their coverage.

Berberoğlu said the commission members learned that one of the newspapers they visited on Wednesday faces nearly 130 lawsuits that were filed over the past 8-9 months and six lawsuits were filed against one of the dailies just on Wednesday over charges of insulting the president.

The CHP deputy chairman said what made them hopeful during their visits to the media organs was the fact that nobody seemed to have yielded to government pressure and they had high motivation for their job.

For his part, TGC President Turgay Olcayto said a monitoring commission would be established at the association in line with a proposal from the CHP to monitor government pressure on media outlets.

In the meantime, former president of the Press Council and a former deputy from the CHP Oktay Ekşi described the operation on İpek Media as an act of "recklessness." He said Turkey has an opportunity on Nov. 1 when it will go to a snap vote to give an end to the reckless acts of the AK Party government.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)