The International Press Institute today joined with its Turkish National Committee, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), EFJ affiliate the Journalists’ Union of Turkey (Türkiye Gazeteciler Sendikası – TGS) and the Freedom for Journalists Platform (Gazetecilere Özgürlük Platformu – GÖP) to issue a statement expressing alarm over the continuing deterioration of media freedom in Turkey.

The full text of the statement appears below.

17 September, 2012

Turkey: Alarming Deterioration in Media Freedom Continues

Representatives of the International Press Institute (IPI), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), IPI’s Turkish National Committee, EFJ affiliate the Journalists’ Union of Turkey (Türkiye Gazeteciler Sendikası – TGS) and the Freedom for Journalists Platform (Gazetecilere Özgürlük Platformu – GÖP) today condemned Turkey’s continued detention of 76 journalists on what appear to be politically-motivated terrorism charges. The groups also expressed deep concern over ongoing pressure on independent, critical journalists that has led to an ever-growing climate of fear and an alarming deterioration in media freedom.

The observations followed monitoring this week by the groups’ representatives of criminal court proceedings in Turkey in which journalists face dubious charges of support for or membership in armed terrorist organisations, and following visits in prison with journalists who remain detained on those allegations and consultation with the journalists’ attorneys and families.

While the groups welcomed the release, pending trial, of two defendants each in the OdaTV and KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Press Committee cases, the groups were disappointed that more defendants were not released, especially given the weak nature of evidence against them. The groups were further disappointed by a Diyarbakir court’s decision not to release journalist/publisher Bedri Adanır.

They further noted that the ongoing trials and detentions of journalists demonstrated that the Third Judicial Package enacted by Parliament this summer, which purported to remedy the situation of imprisoned journalists, did not go nearly as far as necessary in making real structural reforms that would guarantee media freedom in Turkey. The groups also expressed deep concern over the lack of fair treatment and due process afforded to journalists and many others in trials overseen by special courts that have applied overly-restrictive and – in some cases apparently arbitrary – procedural rules.

“The growing gulf between the picture of Turkey as a model of democracy and the reality on the ground that Turkish journalists face is distressing, and it seems only to be worsening,” IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said. “We urge Turkey’s leaders to take real steps to improve media freedom and to end the climate of fear independent journalists must live under every day. We also call on all media in Turkey to stand up with one another in solidarity to fight the forces that would deny the Turkish people the right to vital information they need to make the decisions that affect their lives and to hold those in power to account for their actions.”

“Our worries are not only for the Turkish colleagues and the need for reliable information to the people of Turkey, but also about the signals the situation in Turkey sends to other countries”, EFJ President Arne König said. “It must not be possible to continue on the path the Turkish government is walking. Unfortunately we see in Europe many clear tendencies for more restrictions towards journalism and media. If Turkey is not stopping its restrictions on journalists and media, we fear this will have a negative impact also in other countries, in the region, and in Europe. We therefore call on Turkey’s partners to put pressure on the government to end this war on journalists and freedom of the media.”

OdaTV Case

Representatives of IPI, the EFJ, IPI’s Turkish National Committee, the TGS and the GÖP were present at the latest hearing of the trial in the OdaTV case on Sept. 14 in Istanbul. The case is named for a news website headed by Soner Yalçın that has been fiercely critical of the government, particularly its pursuit of various alleged plots to stage coups against Turkey’s current Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government. Prosecutors say the website and 10 journalists currently on trial attempted to advance the alleged “Ergenekon” plot by using their positions in the media to question the government’s pursuit of the case, thereby undermining it. The prosecutors allege that key documents seized from computers owned by the website and its employees show an “operational plan”, and otherwise rely on snippets of emails and wiretapped telephone conversations to support the allegations.

The defendants, however, allege that the case is a pretext to bully independent voices into silence. They have argued that raids taking the defendants into custody in early 2011 were timed to prevent Yalçın from acquiring the ability to broadcast on television in advance of that year’s parliamentary elections, and that OdaTV employees and others – including IPI World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Şener, investigative journalist Ahmet Şik and former Police Chief turned-whistle blowing author Hanefi Avcı – were implicated in the case in order to silence, or at least delegitimize, their critiques of the Fethullah Gülen religious movement.

The sect is named for a Turkish author, educator and Muslim scholar who fled the country in 1999 for Pennsylvania, and its members are said to be strongly entrenched within Turkey’s judiciary and police forces. The group was at one time a base of support for current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but a rift has reportedly recently developed between the movement and the AKP. Those reports have led some to speculate that recent transfers of judges and prosecutors by the government represent an effort by the AKP to check the movement’s growing power and to mitigate criticism directed at the party over actions against critical journalists by the movement’s adherents.

Some defendants also claim that Turkish author and academic Yalçın Küçük – who the government previously targeted in the Ergenekon probe – was named as a defendant in the OdaTV case as the “missing link” necessary to tie the other defendants to the alleged coup plot.

The defendants say that the key documents were fabricated and placed on OdaTV computers by hackers using viruses. They have submitted conclusions by independent experts in Turkey and the United States supporting that argument, but the court earlier this year asked the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) to conduct an independent analysis. The agency recently concluded that none of the documents were created or opened on the defendants’ computers, and that they could have been sent by viruses that deleted themselves leaving no trace. However, the agency declined to answer whether the documents were sent by viruses.

Friday’s hearing saw the defendants challenging the report and its ambiguity, and the court late in the day sent the report back to TUBITAK, reportedly with directions for it to revise the report within 20 days to be more specific on whether the documents were or were not placed on the computers by viruses. The court also ordered the release of Barış Pehlivan and Barış Terkoğlu – the seventh and eighth journalists, respectively, now released pending trial in the case – but it declined to release Soner Yalçın and Yalçın Küçük. Although observers welcomed the release of Pehlivan and Terkoğlu, they were somewhat surprised by the decision as the court had relied on the TUBITAK report just one week earlier to deny their request for release.

Bedri Adanır Case

Representatives of the EFJ and the TGS were present at the latest hearing in the case of Kurdish journalist/publisher Bedri Adanır on Sept. 13 in Diyarbakir. Adanır, owner of Aram Publishing and a writer for Kurdish daily newspaper Hawar, has been imprisoned since January 2010 on allegations that he is a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and has spread propaganda on the group’s behalf. Adanır’s alleged offences reportedly include distribution of some so-called illegal books and magazines also containing the views and speeches imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan made in his defence before the European Court of Human Rights. The books and magazines, however, reportedly remain widely available and may easily be purchased at bookstores. Adanır is also charged over his writings at the Hawar daily about the views of Öcalan, which the indictment alleges constitute “making propaganda for a terrorist organisation”.

At Thursday’s hearing, Adanır’s lawyer was allowed to present argument in favour of his release for approximately five minutes before the court adjourned. Following a 15-minute recess, the court returned with an approximately one-and-a-half page decision denying the request, suggesting that the order denying his release had been composed in advance of the hearing.

KCK Press Committee Case

Representatives of IPI’s Turkish National Committee and the TGS and the GÖP were present on Sept. 10 at the first hearing of the trial of 44 journalists and press workers accused of links to the “Press Committee” of the KCK, a banned group the government labels the “urban wing” of the PKK. The defendants – two of whom are ethnically Turkish – are charged with membership in an armed terrorist organisation, and 12 are charged as “executors” of the organisation. The defendants include journalists from the Özgür Gündem newspaper, the Dicle News Agency, and Demokratik Modernite magazine. They also include representatives of the Etik Agency and Fırat Distribution, among others.

The defendants were targeted in operations against the KCK last December and 36 were detained pending trial. The 800-page indictment against them reportedly includes, as evidence of their membership in an armed terrorist organisation, respective defendants’ reports about the 2011 earthquakes in Van, a sexual harassment scandal involving Turkish Airlines, the sexual abuse of children in the Pozanti prison and other similar, newsworthy reports. Some defendants were also reportedly targeted in the indictment over telephone conversations with other journalists and columnists about news reports, for newsroom discussions about items and headlines to be printed or broadcast, for possessing press cards and for holding passports and having travelled abroad.

The defendants maintain that the indictment demonstrates that the charges against them are politically motivated and that they have been targeted for doing their jobs. Critics note that the activities for which they have been charged are standard activities carried out by journalists all over the world and they claim that the defendants are on trial because their journalistic activities have embarrassed and angered Turkish authorities.

Monday’s initial hearing in the case was delayed by the court until after noon because the defendants’ lawyers were unable to find sufficient places in the courtroom to all sit down, as the court directed. Native Kurdish-speaking defendants were also reportedly not allowed to enter pleas unless they did so in Turkish. The court on Thursday ordered the release pending trial of two defendants – Çağdaş Ulus, a journalist from the daily Vatan newspaper, and Cihan Ablay, a press worker from Demokratik Modernite magazine – but 34 others remain in prison.

Third Judicial Package

Turkey’s Parliament in July enacted the Third Judicial Package, which was reportedly intended to address Turkey’s deteriorating media freedom environment, among other actions. The package provides that crimes committed via the media that are punishable by up to five years in prison may be suspended and the charges ultimately dropped if no similar offence is committed again within three years. It also reduces the punishment from imprisonment to fines for some offences and abolishes “special courts” like those trying the Odatv case and others in the future. However, the package leaves in place those hearing such cases until the cases conclude, and places a “Sword of Damocles” over the heads of those journalists implicated in “media crimes” whose proceedings are suspended, effectively leaving them at threat of prosecution unless they engage in self-censorship – or stop practicing journalism – until the end of the three-year period. Further, the package also penalises reporting on secretly-recorded conversations. The package has led to the release of a handful of journalists – 76 journalists are now in prison, down from more than 100 earlier this year, and some of the approximately-12 releases are directly attributable to the package – but reportedly will have no impact on those accused of terrorism, such as those implicated in the cases mentioned above.

Conclusions

Ongoing pressure on independent, critical journalists in Turkey has led to an ever-growing climate of fear and an alarming deterioration in media freedom. A mission of international journalists and media organisations – including IPI and its National Committee, the EFJ, the TGS, a delegation of the German Federation of Journalists (Deutscher Journalisten Verband, or DJV), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and the European Association of Journalists (AEJ) – made similar observations following a visit to Turkey from 22 to 24 November, 2011, at which point approximately 64 journalists were being held in prison. However, the situation has only become worse.

Self-censorship remains rampant and outspoken journalists face not only the threat of alleged support for terrorism but also the threat that they will be fired from their positions if their reporting leads to adverse consequences for media owners’ other economic interests. The lack of independent reporting on terrorism cases in the media has led to dissemination of prosecutors’ allegations against journalists, but most mainstream media outlets are silent as to journalists’ arguments in their defence. Insecurity among journalists is the rule, not the exception. As a result, and despite the reduction in the number of journalists in prison, positive change and true media freedom remain elusive.

Accordingly, IPI, the EFJ, IPI’s Turkish National Committee, the TGS and the GÖP:

-Repeat their concern over the worsening situation of media freedom in Turkey, which continues to have what appears to be the highest number of imprisoned journalists in the world;
-Maintain their request for the immediate release of imprisoned Turkish journalists
-Condemn proceedings that seek to criminalise independent journalism;
-Insist that Turkish lawmakers enact real reforms that provide strong guarantees of media freedom that align with international standards, including changes in legislation to drop cases opened against journalists under the umbrella of the anti-terror law and the Turkish penal code, and the abolition of special courts that apply overly-restrictive procedural rules; and
-Demand that Turkey provides journalists facing criminal charges with fair trials and access to due process.