Analysis
April 28, 2011
Summary: Currently, Turkey has
more imprisoned journalists
than any other country. There
are three categories of pressure
towards the media in Turkey. The
first comes from Turkey’s anti-
terror laws, used to jail dissident
voices and that date back to the
1980 coup. The second category
involves alleged arm-twisting
from the prime minister. The
final source of pressure comes
from Turkey’s largest and most
powerful Islamic fraternity led by
Fethullah Gulen.
The European Union and the
Obama administration have at
last joined international press
watchdog groups in voicing alarm
about curbs on free speech. They
need to keep up the pressure
if Turkey is to remain a vaunted
example of democracy in the
Muslim world.
Offices
Washington, DC • Berlin • Paris • Brussels
Belgrade • Ankara • Bucharest
The Turkish Media: At Long Last Turkey
Becomes a World Leader!
by Amberin Zaman
If nature permitted and Turkish pros-
ecutors had their way, Vedat Kursun,
the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kurdish
daily Azadiya Welat would spend 116
years in prison. His biggest crime is
to have permitted the publication
of allegedly separatist articles in his
newspaper. Under Turkey’s draconian
anti-terror laws, this qualifies him for
membership in the outlawed separatist
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an
armed militant group that has been
fighting the Turkish army for the past
27 years.
Kursun is not alone. According to a
recent report by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), of which Turkey is a member,
there are some 57 Turkish journalists
languishing in jail.
By this count, this means Turkey has
more imprisoned journalists than any
other country, surpassing top offenders
Russia and Iran. Turkey also bans
more Internet websites than any other
European country. (The website of
Turkey’s newly established virtual Nazi
party, turknazipartisi.com, appears to
have gone unnoticed.)
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Develop-
ment (AK) party, which is credited
with introducing sweeping reforms,
denies there is a problem. The Turkish
prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
insists that many of the imprisoned
journalists face trial not because of
their writings but because of their
alleged affiliation with terrorist groups.
Besides, he retorts, the government has
no connection with the detentions and
cannot interfere with “the independent
judiciary.”
They refer in particular to the ongoing
Ergenekon trial against a loose
network of retired and serving army
officers, academics, journalists, busi-
ness people, and bureaucrats accused
of plotting to overthrow AK. Because
the trials are being conducted by
special security courts, the defendants
have little or no access to the evidence
used against them.
Mustafa Balbay, a journalist for the
pro-secular daily Cumhuriyet, for
instance, has been awaiting trial under
detention for more than three years,
without being told why. Balbay’s plight
has raised questions about the conduct
of the Ergenekon trial. There are
widespread allegations that evidence
against many of the defendants may
have been either doctored or fabri-
cated.
Analysis
Criticism of the Ergenekon prosecutors grew louder in
March when seven journalists were arrested in separate
raids in Istanbul. Two of them, Ahmet Sik and Nedim
Sener, are award-winning investigative journalists, who
have spoken out against coups, documented human rights
abuses, and exposed corruption. Their arrests on suspicions
of membership in the Ergenekon gang provoked an unprec-
edented backlash. Mass demonstrations in support of Sik
and Sener have become routine. Public fury grew when
police raided the offices of a small liberal daily Radikal
to seize computer files of Sik’s yet unpublished book, The
Imam’s Army. So much for the prosecution’s claims that his
arrest had nothing to do with what he wrote.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and
Development (AK) party, which
is credited with introducing
sweeping reforms, denies there is
a problem.
Has more than eight years of AK rule transformed Turkey
into the “empire of fear” its critics describe? The answer is
plainly “No.” Turkey is a far freer place than it was when
AK first came to power in 2002. With a record number of
coup-mongering officers behind bars, the threat of army
intervention is close to nil. The wave of so-called mystery
murders that claimed the lives of scores of journalists,
mostly Kurds, is long past. Thorny subjects such as the fate
of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 are no longer taboo. But
despite such improvements, the government’s claims, as one
cabinet minister put it, “that the Turkish media is freer than
in America” ought to have been a joke. Alas, Besir Atalay,
the former interior minister, wasn’t joking. The truth is
that freedom of expression in Turkey is under unrelenting
assault.
Broadly speaking, there are three categories of pressure. The
first comes from Turkey’s anti-terror laws, used to jail dissi-
dent voices (again, mainly Kurds) and that date back to the
1980 coup. In 2006, AK broadened the scope of these laws
2
in ways that allow them to ensnare even more journalists in
its net. Indeed, the bulk of reporters behind bars are being
tried under these anti-terror laws. This is an area where
instead of relaxing the laws, AK chose to strengthen them.
The second category involves alleged arm-twisting from the
prime minister. In 2009, Turkey’s largest media conglom-
erate, the Dogan group, was slapped with an exorbitant
multi-billion fine for alleged tax fraud. Dogan executives
are adamant that the crippling sanctions have far less to do
with creative accounting than rude commentary about the
prime minister in the group’s assorted titles. Over the past
year, Dogan has culled anti-government voices, and other
newspapers have followed suit. Media bosses who have
long bartered political support for financial gain apparently
continue to value money over freedom. When the army was
strong they courted the generals. Now that AK is poised
to be re-elected for a third term of single-party rule, edito-
rial lines hew ever more closely to Erdogan. Disgruntled
reporters complain that they engage in self-censorship in
order to keep their jobs. (Still, it’s hard to rouse sympathy
for mainstream columnists who liken Erdogan to Vladimir
Putin yet rarely speak up for their beleaguered Kurdish
colleagues.)
The final source of pressure on the media comes from
Turkey’s largest and most powerful Islamic fraternity led
by Fethullah Gulen, a self-effacing imam who lives in self-
imposed exile in Pennsylvania. The so-called Gulenists are
said to have infiltrated the bureaucracy, especially the police
force. They are widely believed to be behind the arrests of
Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener.
Has more than eight years of
AK rule transformed Turkey into
the “empire of fear” its critics
describe? The answer is plainly
“No.”
Analysis
Sik’s book, The Imam’s Army, documents the Gulenists’
growing influence in the security services. “Those who
touch [them] burn” he cried as he was bundled into a police
van. Sener has been similarly critical of the Gulen move-
ment. Leaked transcripts of the pair’s interrogation by the
former Ergenekon prosecutor, Zekeriya Oz, reveal that he
grilled them mostly about their books. He also dwelled on
their links to Hanefi Avci, a prominent police chief. A self
avowed Muslim conservative, Avci is currently awaiting
trial for alleged membership in an obscure left-wing group.
His arrest came soon after he published his own document
detailing Gulen’s alleged grip over the security establish-
ment.
The Gulenists’ mantra is tolerance and inter-faith dialogue,
and the movement is widely credited with being a moder-
ating force. They dismiss claims that they are behind
the recent wave of journalists’ arrests as part of a smear
campaign. Yet, Today’s Zaman, an English language Turkish
daily that is closely affiliated with the Gulenists, recently
sacked Andrew Finkel, an American academic cum jour-
nalist who has covered Turkey for The Times of London
and CNN International. Finkel’s transgression was to have
questioned the newspaper’s breezily dismissive coverage of
Sik and Sener’s detentions in his column for Today’s Zaman.
Sik and Sener’s arrests may prove to be a turning point.
When prosecutor Zekeriya Oz declared that anyone in
possession of Sik’s unpublished book would be consid-
ered guilty of the same charges, Turks began downloading
the manuscript by the thousands from a surreptitiously
assembled Facebook page. Prominent writers have left their
columns blank in protest of the arrests. Oz was recently
stripped of his duties in the Ergenekon case and reassigned
as acting chief deputy prosecutor for Istanbul.
The European Union and the Obama administration have at
last joined international press watchdog groups in voicing
alarm about curbs on free speech. They need to keep up
the pressure if Turkey is to remain a vaunted example of
democracy in the Muslim world.
About the Author
Amberin Zaman is the Turkey correspondent for The Economist and
also writes a column twice a week for the mass circulation Turkish
daily Haberturk.
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