Women protesting against the seizure of the offices of the Zaman newspaper in Istanbul being dispersed by teargas. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images
The censorship and arrests that characterise Erdoğan’s rule are as chaotic as they are intimidating. That makes them all the more alarming
Note and lament a new world record. On the latest count, there are now 126 journalists in Turkey’s jails – more than China, Iran and Egypt put together. And 2,500 or so Turkish writers, editors and broadcasters have lost their jobs since the coup that failed. So much for press freedom in a land that Boris Johnson now says he wants to see inside the EU (just as he heads in a different direction with a jar of Marmite stuffed up his jumper).
Could things get any worse? Actually they grow bleaker the closer you look, because the arrests and the charges are so various, so chaotic and often so plain stupid. Turkey isn’t just pursuing writers they think linked to that supposed Gülenist plot, or Kurdish reporters with a random terrorism sticker plonked on their foreheads.
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Here’s one case where the journalists involved were trying to warn the country about an impending coup. Slap a charge of disclosing military secrets on them. And here again, outrageously, are two of Turkey’s most distinguished brothers, Ahmet and Mehmet Altan, one an ex-editor and renowned novelist, the other an economist and respected columnist, held on the most farcical grounds.
When Ahmet Altan edited the Taraf newspaper from 2007 to 2012 he used his scorn and his stories to fend off any threats of a takeover. Mehmet argued passionately for a new Turkey united, not riven by race or religion. They are both champions of democracy: just like their father, Çetin, another fine novelist and crusader for free journalism.
The brothers were first arrested for giving “subliminal signals” about the coup on a TV chatshow. Hoots of derision. Now they’re accused of “actively conspiring” to discredit the military, so as to open the way for a cadre of coup conspirators. More derision, but also fear. Ahmet still faces charges for being a member of a terrorist organisation and actually staging the 15 July coup. Life-sentence business.
Seven years ago, before Çetin Altan died, President Erdoğan gave the old man a prize for intellectual valour. “Turkey is not a country any more where Çetin Altan is put on trial 300 times,” Erdoğan said. “You cannot move forward if you cannot tolerate the criticism.” The problem now, as Turkey slides back, is finding either rhyme or reason in so many of the post-coup arrests and imprisonments.
Is Erdoğan on some solo rampage? Or – more likely, alas – are the virulent nationalists now in control bent on paying off old scores come what may? The temptation, as press freedom and much else dies, is to see it as some kind of masterfully controlled and implemented policy. But there’s a still more depressing alternative. Call General Mayhem. It’s retribution time.
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■ And so we say farewell to pixelated pictures of sex victims (in particular the teenage girl assaulted by the footballer Adam Johnson). An £80,000 fine for the Daily Telegraph, topped off by £10,000 damages to the girl in question, sees to that. Good for the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, recently amended to lift any cap on fines.
Pause before cheering, though. Didn’t the judge say that “more distress was caused by social media”? Isn’t it true that identification and pillorying by your Facebook flock may cause lasting, more personal pain? But astronomic fines have no relevance to other teenagers stirring the social media pot.
The law, in Levesonian mode, still argues that newspapers are big, known quantities that QCs pushing bags stuffed with legal documents can deal with in traditional mode – while Facebook, Snapchat and the rest are somehow fleeting, elusive things floating in cyberspace. It’s increasing, outdated rubbish. Pixelated thinking.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/16/turkey-media-repression-general-mayhem-erdogan?CMP=share_btn_tw