I wonder if any of you have been following the ongoing "battle" between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Aydın Doğan. You may be aware that the government recently imposed a $3.9 bn (!) fine on Doğan Media Group, a move which has been severely criticised in the European Union's recent progress report on Turkey. The levy has also been condemned by press associations around the world, seen by many as an attempt to strangle criticism of the government.
And I have just opened the newspaper to read this ridiculous statement by Ahmet Davutoğlu: "There is no censorship in Turkey." Yeah, right. Try to open YouTube off campus, or any other web sites deemed to contain "offensive" material. Oh, but Tayyip Erdoğan is allowed to access YouTube! Let's not forget that. And last year, my class blog was suddenly and inexplicably banned for several days. No doubt my readers can provide many more examples...
One of the biggest concerns when we consider the notion of press freedom in Turkey is still Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which makes it illegal to "publicly denigrate" (how do you define denigrate?) the Turkish nation. This latter wording was changed from "Turkishness" in 2008. Numerous writers and journalists have been prosecuted under this law, including such high profile cases as Orhan Pamuk, Hrant Dink and Elif Şafak. Note that Elif Şafak was put on trial for something one of the characters in her novel said. You can read the EU's outstanding concerns about Article 301 on page 18 of their recent report.
These are just three issues that immediately come to mind when thinking about how much freedom of expression there is in Turkey today. I would encourage you to explore this topic, and to blog about the results of your research...
It's also worth considering that it has been alledged that Orhan Pamuk was targeted as a result of the actions of the alledged Ergenekon organisation.
ReplyDeleteThe celebrity Hülya Avşar also recently had a suit filled against her at a court for saying she was half butter and half olive oil. In other words, half Turkish and half Kurdish and speaking in favour of Erdoğan's 'democracy initiative'
I also read in Hürriyet recently that Erdoğan had filed a complaint against leader of the MHP Devlet Bahçeli for 'emotional distress' as a result of comments made in parliament!
In these cases, I don't think the problem is really a lack of freedom of the press, but its an issue of Turkey's identity.
For example, following the foundation of the Republic in 1923, Atatürk's reforms were often introduced by force. He was introducing European and bourgeois concepts such as secularism into a deeply religious society.
How could this have been done except by force and who could have been the guardian of these reforms except the army? While such a role for the armed forces retards the development of democracy in Turkey, it also has its benefits as the gains made since the foundation of the Republic has a protector who have intervened 4 times and overthrew governments since the foundation of the Republic.
In my opinion the issue is for control, for example, Doğan's columnists are often the harshest critics of Erdoğan and the strongest supports of the TSK. Erdoğan can't undercut them publicliy because the TSK is held in such high regard, so must do so covertly for his own political gains.
Listening to Erdoğan shouting makes me feel emotionally distressed, perhaps I should file a suit against him. :))
ReplyDeleteI remembered the 'reason' my blog was banned. A blogger had posted a clip of a football match on his blog without permission. Instead of dealing with this individually, the government simply shut the whole service down.
We have pretty practical solutions don't we, you have to admit that it's way faster to ban the site :)
ReplyDeletei think the government controls the media.so they can direct people to which way they ever want.to do that the government do what ever is needed.they tell the media what to publish and if there is something against the government's purpose than it'll be baned.i think it is all about politics.very complex stuff.better to stay away from.
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