Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
Turkey Related Subjects => Turkey Discussion Forum (Not Calis specifically) => Topic started by: JohnF on April 26, 2017, 10:46:16 AM
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Another 1,000 folks arrested today from a list containing over 3,000 names. This coming on the day it was announced by Reporters Without Borders that Turkey has dropped four points in their rankings, to 155 out of 180 in their Press Freedom Index.
They say:
The witchhunt waged by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government against its media critics has come to a head since the abortive coup of July 2016. The authorities have used their fight against “terrorism” as grounds for an unprecedented purge. A state of emergency has allowed them to eliminate dozens of media outlets at the stroke of a pen, reducing pluralism to a handful of low-circulation publications. Dozens of journalists have been imprisoned without trial, turning Turkey into the world’s biggest prison for media personnel. Those still free are exposed to other forms of arbitrary treatment including waves of trials, withdrawal of press cards, cancellation of passports, and seizure of assets. Censorship of online social networks has also reached unprecedented levels. More (https://rsf.org/en/turkey)
Murat Yetkin wrote a decent article in the TDN, as he says:
Unfortunately, we are living in a world where journalism is not getting more difficult but more dangerous – to the extent that journalistic associations have launched an award journalists working under difficult circumstances.
Doğan Tılıç is an experienced Turkish journalist (and also a part-time academic on communications) who has been working as the Ankara bureau chief of the Spanish News Agency (EFE) for nearly three decades. He is also active in national and international journalism associations, including leading positions in the Association of European Journalists (AEJ); he received the UNESCO Press Freedom award in 2016.
Tılıç is now among the top three finalists in Spain’s prestigious Cirilo Rodriguez journalism award for 2017, together with EFE’s Istanbul correspondent, Ilya Topper. Other finalists include Carlos Frangillo, the Washington correspondent of TVE who worked for years in Russia before, and El Mundo’s Garcia Prieto, who reported for years from Russia, Israel, Iraq, Syria and Thailand as a woman war reporter. More (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/journalism-in-difficult-times.aspx?pageID=449&nID=112394&NewsCatID=409)
Now that the power will be in the hands of one man, I suspect Turkey will finish up somewhere between North Korea and China in next years Press Freedom Index. I hope Mr Yetkin has a plan B, given some of his criticism recently of the ruling party.
JF
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"Nowhere in the world is the press freer than it is in Turkey. I’m very sure of myself when I say this. The press is so free in Turkey that one can make insults, slander, defamation, racism (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tag/racism) and commit hate crimes that are not tolerated even in democratic countries," {R.T. Erdogan, December 2014}.
“Erdogan directly or indirectly controls 80% of the media in Turkey,” {E.Onderoglu, Turkish Representative: Journalists Without Borders, 2017}.
[The Public Prosecutor has called for a 14 year prison sentence for Onderoglu]
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"Speaking at one of his regular meetings with muhtars [neighborhood heads] at the presidential palace in Ankara on Wednesday, Erdoğan said: “I say, ‘Give me the list of jailed journalists.’ I look at the list and see that all of them are thieves, child abusers or terrorists."
The problem is that a lot of folks believe him. Unfortunately for the journalists, the important ones who "believe" him are his hand picked judges and prosecutors.
JF
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And it's only going to get worse:(
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No-one is safe really:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-main-opposition-deputy-asks-about-mysterious-kidnapping-incidents.aspx?pageID=238&nID=112447&NewsCatID=338
JF
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An interesting US take on Reg
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/26/europe/turkey-airstrikes-erdogan-us-west/index.html
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The more we read these posts the more we are thinking of selling up. Very sad as we do love the place so much. ;D :o :'(
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It was a factor in our decision to sell our beautiful home in Calis.
I cannot accept living in a country where the government suppresses "freedom of speech" and locks up (and worse - as he will next try to bring the death penalty back) people that speak out - so sad :(
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Ditto Ian
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Another 1,600 or so arrested yesterday and 4,000 folks dismissed from their jobs - Ministry of Justice workers, members of armed forces and a hundred or so air force pilots.
Mainstream media (BBC, CNN etc) all now appear to be picking up on purges, and now calling these dismissals and arrests by that term.
Oh and lets not forget the ban on TV dating shows... not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing :)
JF
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You were right about wikipedia Jf. Dont usually use it, needed it today too. tut x
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Use a VPN, or try using Opera browser - it's got a built in VPN.
JF
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Over the last few weeks, with all the Trump/UK General Election/French Presidential Election chatter about politics and the future, I notice that UK political commentators routinely cite Turkey as a troubling example of how countries slide into authoritarianism. This is not usually part of an analysis of Turkey itself but part of a throwaway list of countries which have stable governments bu not of the Western liberal-democratic pattern. Such lists often start with North Korea {at one end of the scale}, mention Russia and a few other places in passing, and finish with Turkey {at the other end of the scale}. I think this is becoming the taken-for-granted or default view on Turkey: "Oh yes, Turkey; one of those authoritarian regimes".
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You were right about wikipedia Jf. Dont usually use it, needed it today too. tut x
Well, why didn't you use Calispedia ? ;) If we in the UK don't know the answer, we can at least copy and paste the Wikipedia answer for you.
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From the World Socialist Web Site:
In the aftermath of its extremely narrow victory in the April 16 constitutional referendum and amid widespread allegations of voting fraud, the Turkish government is escalating its crackdown on political opposition and the Internet as part of the country’s ongoing state of emergency.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/05/turk-m05.html
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That's another 107 judges and prosecutors away at the end of last week. He's doing a good job of creating his own private judiciary, that's for sure.
JF
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There's an article in the HDN suggesting WhatsApp could come under the cosh.
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Excellent piece by Murat Yetkin published in the HDN over the weekend exposing the double standards in the way those accused of terror crimes are being treated. It's well worth a read.
Amid the Qatar crisis which is straining the entire neighborhood, Turkish politics has become occupied with a son-in-law crisis where the courts are accused of positive discrimination in the case of the relatives of key political figures of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti).
The debate started when Ömer Faruk Kavurmacı, the son-in-law of Istanbul’s powerful mayor, Kadir Topbaş, was released on May 5. Kavurmacı was arrested following the July 15, 2016, coup attempt which has been blamed on U.S.-resident Islamist preacher Fethullah Gülen. Kavurmacı was on the board of TUSKON, a Gülenist business organization which used to be favored by AK Parti governments but later became the target of accusations of funding the “terrorist network of Gülen.”
Full article (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/the-son-in-law-dilemma-for-turkish-justice.aspx?PageID=238&NID=114198&NewsCatID=409)
JF