Gag Order On Mosul Crisis Aims To Hide Government Negligence

Since the June 11 raid on Turkey's Mosul consulate, in which the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took 49 consular employees hostage, the government has been widely criticized for its failure to prevent the incident.

According to analysts, the Foreign Ministry should have evacuated the consulate building immediately after ISIL's seizure of Mosul. While ISIL is still holding the consular officials captive, along with 31 Turkish truck drivers that it also abducted, the Foreign Ministry says all the captives are safe and that diplomatic talks to ensure their release are underway. On June 17, an Ankara court issued a gagging order on media reports concerning the Mosul raid. The ban was imposed on the grounds of protecting the safety of those being held. The court order came only two days after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan slammed the media over reports on the hostage crisis.

Bugün daily columnist Erhan Başyurt wrote a Wednesday piece titled “There must be a reason behind this apathy.” With regards to the ban, Başyurt stated that the relevant court order had designated ISIL a “terrorist organization” and tried to justify the prohibition with the claim that the media reports portrayed the government as weak. According to Başyurt, the ban has been introduced because the government does not want the media to write about its negligence in failing to evacuate the Mosul consular employees in time. “Looking at the government's apathy in the crisis, one should not be surprised by the ban,” Başyurt commented, adding that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu recently confessed that his ministry had decided to evacuate the consulate building three days before the raid. Başyurt also noted that the media recently revealed that Davutoğlu had called Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani ahead of the ISIL raid to ask for his help in the planned evacuation of the consulate.

Another detail Başyurt pointed out was that even though the foreign minister had not succeeded in performing the evacuation, Davutoğlu flew to New York only 20 hours before the raid. Davutoğlu posted a tweet before his flight to New York saying, “All necessary measures were taken for the security of our Mosul Consulate,” Başyurt added. According to the columnist, the meeting Davutoğlu attended in New York was not an essential event. “Well, what is the reason behind this apathy?” Başyurt asked.

Mehveş Evin, a columnist with the Milliyet daily, also wrote about the current situation in the Turkish media. According to Evin, last year's nationwide Gezi Park protests also led to a change in the media. The Gezi demonstrators widely protested against censorship, disinformation and financial relationships between media bosses and the government, Evin said. Some media outlets lost their reputation with their pro-government coverage of the incidents, she commented, adding that the country witnessed the emergence of an alternative media during the Gezi events. Twitter has begun to be used frequently for impartial reporting, and Turkey has welcomed many digital news portals such as Diken.com.tr, Çapul TV, Dokuz8haber, kamerasokak, NaberMedya, Dağ Medya and 140journos, Evin noted.

GÜNAY HİLAL AYGÜN (Cihan/Today's Zaman)