No Room For Freedoms In Turkey As Intimidation Against Press Spreads

Turkey has been witnessing systematic government censorship, intimidation and harassment towards members of the press, supported by media outlets affiliated with the ruling party, with the number of journalists and newspapers being targeted in smear campaigns increasing steadily.

In a recent example, on Monday, an anonymous letter delivered to a news portal warned that two columnists who are critical of the government, namely Murat Belge of the Taraf daily and Aydın Engin of the Cumhuriyet daily, face the risk of assassination. On Tuesday, the online newspaper Karşı Gazete was raided by police officers who asked the editors to remove an online news story reporting on graft allegations that implicated the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.

In his first reaction to the letter, Belge, speaking to the Taraf daily, commented that the threat appeared to be aimed at intimidating columnists critical of the government. With journalists' associations denouncing the reported assassination threat, many journalists and representatives of civil society organizations have accused the AK Party government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of creating an atmosphere of hostility and placing pressure on anti-government circles in an effort to stifle the claims of corruption.

Both Belge and Engin have filed criminal complaints demanding that those who reportedly planned to assassinate them, as the letter claimed, be found.

The Turkish Journalists Association (TGC) also made a statement denouncing the threat directed at Belge and Engin and asking officials to find the source of the threat.

On the morning of Dec. 17, 2013, Turkey woke up to news of a huge corruption operation. A number of prominent figures, including the sons of three ministers and Iranian national Reza Zarrab, who allegedly bribed several ministers, were placed under arrest. Subsequently, documents allegedly providing evidence of corruption were exposed, and sound recordings of conversations allegedly revealing corruption and bribery were shared online. However, all the suspects were later released, and a commission was set up in Parliament to examine the allegations, which extended to Erdoğan and his family.

Since that day, the government has been carrying out a witch hunt against media outlets and journalists who publish stories related to the corruption investigation. Erdoğan, who was then prime minister, has not refrained from targeting many journalists by naming them in public, prompting smear campaigns against these journalists.

Veteran journalist Derya Sazak, speaking to Today's Zaman, warned of the gravity of this threat, saying, "All types of hateful rhetoric and threats against journalists from the government or individuals should be taken seriously because these threats have the potential to become real and to cause the assassination of the targeted names," recalling the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 following some threatening letters.

Karşı Gazete's website cannot be accessed

After Tuesday's raid on the Karşı Gazete website, access to the news portal is being denied, but the reason for this is not yet clear.

Responding to questions from Today's Zaman about the lack of access to its website, Karşı Gazete journalist Emre Erciş said they have no information about the access problem, adding: "In the wake of yesterday's police crackdown on our office, today readers are facing access problems. Also, when the site officials enquired through an online checking system whether any blocking decision has been taken by the Telecommunications Directorate [TİB], a message appeared on the system saying that there has not been any ban on access to the content of the website by the TİB. In addition, we posted images and video footage of the police raid on www.sansursuzhaber.com, and now that news portal is also suffering from the same access problem."

Erdoğan kicks off defamation campaign against female journalists

Several female journalists, including Amberin Zaman, Ceyda Karan, Selin Girit and Ceylan Yeğinsu were recently among those facing insults from Erdoğan and those who follow in his footsteps on social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

In early August, Erdoğan accused The Economist journalist Zaman of belittling Muslims and the voting public. In a rally held as part of Erdoğan's presidential election campaign in Malatya, Erdoğan attacked her verbally, saying she should know her place. Erdoğan accused Zaman, who had expressed the opinion that voters in Muslim-majority countries in general and AK Party voters in particular are not critical or questioning, of insulting Muslims and Islam. Erdoğan responded by calling Zaman “a shameless militant journalist.”

Karan, foreign news editor of the Cumhuriyet daily, is another victim of a campaign of hate speech, and she suffered insults from social media users after her remarks critical of the government and made on a TV program were twisted. She was attacked after implying on the Aug. 20 program that voters had been manipulated in the presidential election.

In another instance, Ankara's AK Party mayor, Melih Gökçek, recently launched a Twitter campaign against BBC Turkish journalist Girit for her Twitter reports on a protesters' meeting at Yoğurtçu Park in İstanbul, accusing Girit of being an "English agent" and of engaging in "treachery to her nation."

Furthermore, pro-government media outlets recently targeted reporter Yeğinsu, of The New York Times, after the US daily came under attack from Erdoğan over a report focusing on the alleged recruitment of Turks by the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in an Ankara neighborhood. The NYT ran the story in late August with a photo of Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu leaving a mosque in Ankara's Hacıbayram neighborhood, which the report said has become an ISIL recruitment hub.

It later removed the photo and published a correction, but this did not stop a verbal attack on Yeğinsu.

Opposition questions gov't-led intimidation campaign

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), through its parliamentary questions, often tries to reduce the effect of these government-led witch hunt tactics on the press, as it has done for the raid on Karşı Gazete. CHP Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu submitted a parliamentary question to Interior Minister Efkan Ala on Wednesday, asking for the legal reasons behind the Karşı Gazete raid, questioning whether the main purpose of such practices is to silence media outlets that oppose the government's questionable activities.

However, the CHP rarely gets an answer to its parliamentary questions, creating discussion about the government's accountability.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)