Press freedom and other hollow shells

#FREE MEDIA CANNOT BE SILENCED

BY AMIR ALABED
Beirut/Istanbul 


"There cannot be limitless media freedom." This may well seem like a statement issued by third-class dictator somewhere in the remotest corner of Africa. However it is not. These are the exact words of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A onetime lapse? No, rather symptomatic for an administration that over the course of the last years has grown increasingly hostile towards dissenting voices in general and opposition press in particular.
In fact, the AK Party government has never been fussy about reining voices critical of its administration. On the contrary. Mr. Erdogan’s record speaks for himself.
In 2009 the editor of Taraf was charged with divulging military secrets.
 In 2014 Turkey’s executive forces raided the offices of leading daily Zaman arresting editor in-chief Ekrem Dumanli and Hidayet Karaca, general manager of Samanyolu on the charges of “establishing and managing an armed terrorist organization” to overthrow the government. The same year columnist Önder Aytac was condemned for 10 months in jail for insulting Erdogan. 
In November 2015 the newspaper Cumhuriyet was awarded the Reporters Without Borders Prize for its "independent and courageousjournalism" in regard to the 2014 MIT trucks scandal. Shortly thereafter, editor in chief Dündar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül were arrested on charges of being members of a terror organization, espionage and revealing confidential documents, facing sentences up to life imprisonment. They were released in 2016 due to undue deprivation of liberty by ruling of the Supreme Court. Erdogan's comment: "I do not respect nor obey the verdict."

On October 26^th 2015, only four days before the November general election, the government seized the Koza Izpek Holding which controls the dailies Milet and Bügün and the TV channels Bügün and Kanaltürk TV. Koza Izpek was shut down in February 2016.
On March 4^th 2016 authorities used the same scheme to take control over the country’s largest newspaper Zaman (which already had been raided in 2014) and its English-language affiliate Today’s Zaman.
 Whereas Cumhuriyet is close to the main opposition party, the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP), both Zaman and Koza Izpek are believed to be (or have been) close to the Islamist Gülen Movement, sparheaded by Fethullah Gülen, a former ally of Erdogan turned enemy.
 
It would be too simplistic though to define this is a mundane media crackdown of an increasingly authoritarian president.  Erdogan is wary of the activities of the Gülen Movement, which he seems to think is staging a coup d’etats. In 2007 Nokba magazine, exposed the Ergenekon scandal revolving around an alleged nationalist underground network comprising key personnel of the Turkish military and members of the Kemalist elite and planning to carry out terrorist attacks against senior AK members and even Erdogan himself.
 
This may have been a turning point in Erdogan’s personal history, making him leery and overly distrustful. This may have also been a reason for the breach between the two former friends Erdogan and Gülen. Erdogan frets that the Gülen movement after all might outflank him in power, since both Gülen and Erdogan’s AKP appeal to the same people and the same voters: typically religious social conservatives in or hailing from Anatolia or Eastern Turkey that do not recognize themselves in the secularism promoted by the Kemalist elites and Western bourgeoisie. What Erdogan is most afraid of is what to his mind is bound to happen once the Gülen movement has gained enough power and momentum to pursue its ultimate strategy: a violent takeover of the AK Party.

To avoid this Erdogan has not only made onslaughts on media that he believes to promote the Gülen agenda, but also cleansed his own party from exponents allegedly supporting the preacher. That includes former deputy prime minister Ali Babacan who despite broad recognition and undisputed economic expertise was not appointed to a ministry after the last of many government reshuffles.

With his latest aggression against Zaman and Samanyolu Erdogan has crossed a red line. The foreclosure of the leading media corporation is in no way reconcilable with a functioning democracy, no matter what his motifs were: clinging to power or “protecting” the state from the “parallel state” as he likes to call it.

The freedom of the Press is not something that is negotiable. Erdogan has to understand that this is not the Ottoman emperor anymore. He can’t just use the judiciary system to get rid of potential enemies. This is a modern country with an active civil society. In the immediate aftermath of the seizure hundreds took to the streets to protest against the government’s egregious moves. The public will not accept that kind of behavior anymore. Erdogan is going to have to acknowledge that. Soon.