Media Pushes Back On Erdogan Pressure

[Aslan]

The most troubling part of it all was that no one was surprised that Derya Sazak, the executive editor of Milliyet daily, might have walked out of his job under government pressure as a result of publishing one of the bigger scoops in a long time. Namik Durukan, the daily’s long time correspondent on Kurdish affairs reported on Feb.26th the notes of the meeting between imprisoned Kurdistan Worker’s Party leader Abdullah Ocalan, and the three members of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party during their visit to Imrali on Feb, 23. Like it or not, people had a chance to learn about the inside dynamics of Ocalan’s control of this government initiated peace talks with the Kurds, and what role he thinks he has in all of this. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got furious by media exposure, and trashed it by saying “damn your journalism!” <- (lol who says that xD .. )

As the day progressed on Tuesday [March 5], Derya Sazak hinted that the crisis appeared to be over. All reports that he had walked out of the Milliyet building the previous night after having a brief and tough conversation with Yildirim Demiroren, the owner, cooled down. For now, he seems like to have kept his job — along with Hasan Cemal and Can Dundar, two veteran Milliyet columnists. Reputable media websites throughout the day suggested that their contracts could also be terminated for reasons that are unclear.

Unless Demiroren and Sazak decide to share the details of their positions that brought them to the verge of ending their professional relationship and how deep was Erdogan’s involvement, this whole thing may very well stay a mystery. But there is no question that something happened at Milliyet, when Yildirim Demiroren, the owner, allegedly got annoyed with the negative attention of Erdogan to his newspaper.

The incident is, however, far from being over because this whole melee will add to the already existing chilling effect felt by the media, and to already prevalent self-censorship. While the rumors over big time lay offs at Milliyet were swirling Tuesday [March 5], Erdogan was addressing his party’s group at the parliament. “No one is criticizing this anti-nationalist exposure, this sabotage [to the government initiated peace process]. Even those well-known writers are giving us lessons on freedom of the media,” he said. This is not really true — because Durukan was under fire not only from the ruling party but also from a large part of his colleagues for doing a good job.
“There is no unlimited freedom. No one can violate freedom of others,” Erdogan said at the parliament. “Just as the media is free to report by stepping on all sensitivities of national issues, we’re also free to express our feelings. They’re writing all they want as they never did before!”

But based on his reaction to this news report, the prime minister does not seem to want anyone to know much about the details of this process until all things are agreed upon. Yet he fails to grasp the notion that journalism is not a profession to follow government’s orders, or that it’s not really its job to praise its work and act like its stenographer without having a critical mind. On the contrary, freedom of the media becomes a necessity when journalists report on things that the authorities prefer to be kept unknown. In democracies, there is no absolute trust to the government. And yes, the quality of journalistic activity should certainly be debated — but it’s not the same thing as accusing one of treason or painting him as a target to masses by accusing him that he risks harming the nation’s best interests.

In that context, the question then becomes when we talk about freedom of the media, do we all mean the same thing? The answer needs some discussion — especially in trying to understand Erdogan’s perception of what “freedom of media.”

The European Charter of 2009 writes:“Freedom of the press is essential to a democratic society. To uphold and protect it, and to respect its diversity and its political, social and cultural missions, is the mandate of all governments.”

As a candidate country to become a full member of the European Union, Turkey has statutory obligations to uphold this standard. These, therefore, should not be issues open to debate. All must have a common understanding of the terminology. In October 2012, the European Commission’s progress report on Turkey’s EU membership application, made it clear that Turkey is significantly sliding backwards on issues concerning the fourth estate of its democracy.
“[R]eforms fall short of a significant improvement regarding freedom of expressions,” the report wrote. "High-level government and state officials and the military repeatedly turn publicly against the press and launch court cases. On a number of occasions journalists have been fired (for) articles openly critical of the government.” The report then goes on to say this: "All of this, combined with a high concentration of the media in industrial conglomerates with interests going far beyond the free circulation of information and ideas, has a chilling effect and limits freedom of expression in practice, while making self-censorship a common phenomenon in the Turkish media."

To sum up, not only the government but Milliyet owner Yildirim Demiroren should also be considered going through a test of their commitment to democracy. For now, Demiroren to have sided with his team and that can only be good news for Turkey. But the European Union countries now should also be called to duty to look into the details of what happened at Milliyet Tuesday if they take Turkey’s membership into EU seriously, and consider that the Union can only be stronger with Turkish citizens in it.

In October, when the European Commission’s Turkey progress report revealed these dilemmas, Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s chief negotiator with the EU, had rejected those charges over the freedom of the media as a “cracked mirror.” Erdogan posed a question on the standards of the freedom of the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, and that could be a good point to start a conversation with the prime minister. Otherwise, don’t expect good news from Turkey — on the freedom of the media.