Press freedom in Turkey has been on a deteriorating course in recent years, according to Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House. In 2012, Turkey ranked first on the list of countries that jailed the most journalists. In 2013 and 2014 the country ranked better, the number of jailed journalists declining respectively to 40 and 23 in the last two years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The issue is delicate. While national and international press freedom watchdogs come up with these findings, the Turkish government reiterates that those who have been detained and arrested were prosecuted for their non-journalistic activities, including alleged membership in terrorist organisations and involvement in violent crimes. According to government statements, most of these individuals do not even possess a press badge, so cannot be considered journalists, and have not been jailed for their journalistic activities. In Turkey, according to the the Directorate General of Press and Information, the official body that issues press badges, 15,129 journalists currently possess a yellow press card. However, the actual number of journalists is estimated to be much higher, as media employers are often unwilling to register their employees. To save money, some media owners also don't offer a formal press contract to their in-house journalists.
THE CASE OF FOREIGN JOURNALISTS: The situation, albeit to a lesser extent, also affects foreign journalists based in Turkey. During the latest round of pressure on members of the press, a Dutch journalist, Frederike Geerdink, currently based in the southeast city of Diyarbakir, was briefly detained last week for allegedly engaging in “propaganda for a terrorist organisation.” Geerdink's detention came the same day that Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders was paying an official visit to Turkey's capital, Ankara. It also coincided with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's renewed claim that the Turkish media is among the freest in the world. When Geerdink spoke to the anti-terrorism squad knocking on her door that day, she was told that she was “under detention.” Later at police headquarters, officials changed the wording from detention to “invitation for testimony.” “The changed wording did not represent the reality,” Geerdink told Middle East Eye (MEE). “I had to go through a health check before and after the interrogation and they confiscated my phone in the meantime.” According to Turkish arrest, detention and interrogation regulations, health checks before and after interrogation, as well as confiscation of communication devices, is official procedure. When asked if she was scared, Geerdink said she was at first shocked, but her feeling turned to anger, rather than fear. “When I opened my door I was flabbergasted, but soon after I told myself, ‘This is Turkey, I should not be surprised.'” This is not the first time that a foreign journalist has had a difficult time in Turkey. In the last year alone, non-Turkish reporters have gone through a variety of challenges on multiple occasions. Azerbaijani journalist Mahir Zeynalov, who worked at Turkish daily Today's Zaman, the English language offshoot of the Gulen Movement, was threatened with prosecution when “he posted tweets against high-level state officials.” Facing immediate deportation, Zeynalov and his wife decided to leave the country on their own terms, before the police took any action. Zeynalov's tweets were considered to be “inciting hatred and animosity among the public,” and Erdogan, then acting as prime minister, filed a case against him. His tweets were about the notorious 17-25 December 2013 corruption and bribery probe, which targeted government ministers, high-level bureaucrats and prominent businessmen. “In February 2014, the Interior Ministry made a decision to deport me over ‘insulting high-level state officials,'” Zeynalov told MEE. “But it was a part of mounting intolerance against me, built up after months of pressure by government officials and their supporters.” Zeynalov said that aside from having the necessary documentation to stay and work in Turkey, he is also married to a Turkish national, which grants him the right to become a citizen and remain in the country. While authorities usually wait a short period of time before deporting someone, so that the individual concerned can appeal the decision, Zeynalov and his family were not given that chance.
LONGSTANDING ISSUES: The rising pressure is not the signature of the current Justice and Development Party (JDP) government. In fact, during the first years of JDP rule, democratic rule advanced with haste. This was thanks to European Union accession prospects. There were major reforms in human rights, individual rights and freedoms, press freedom, and democratic institutions between 2001 and 2005. However, over the past few years, challenging events led the government to take drastic measures that for some resulted in a more authoritarian and intolerant rule. On one hand, mounting fault lines since 2012 between former allies, the JDP and the Gulen Movement, brought about a clandestine battle in the judiciary. Long-time Turkey observer Andrew Finkel recently said: “For most of its time in power, the JDP has not resorted to this method [detention].” Finkel stood trial in 1999 for insulting the military in a Turkish-language article, but was later acquitted. The Gezi Park protests in May 2013 changed the political climate of the country and led the government, as well as the opposition, to adopt a polarising political discourse, which has now become everyday practice. Within that environment, press members were always on the frontlines, reporting on the most sensitive issues. On the first anniversary of the Gezi Park protests, in the summer of 2014, Ivan Watson, CNN International's Istanbul-based reporter for the last 12 years, was detained live during CNN's coverage. In an interview after the incident, Watson said that what normally could be considered an “isolated incident” became a much larger issue when Erdogan took the incident a step further, insulting Watson and saying he was caught red-handed, implying Watson was acting like a spy. A month later, Watson left Turkey and was reassigned to Hong Kong. According to Asli Tunc, a professor and media analyst at Istanbul Bilgi University, these isolated incidents are actually a reflection of what has been happening in Turkey for several years. “On an ever-expanding course, what started with Turkish and Kurdish journalists is now affecting foreign journalists as well. People are now getting harassed live on TV or social media and no one has an exemption from it,” she told MEE.
PRESS FREEDOM AT LARGE: Veteran journalist Rusen Cakir recently identified three main tendencies regarding how the media covers the issue of Turkish press freedom. While some media organisations saw pressure and raids or detentions as a direct assault on press freedom, those with more pro-government positions have emphasised the non-journalistic activities of the detained journalists, Cakir wrote. A smaller group, meanwhile, has refrained from commenting altogether. Riza Turmen is a former European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judge and MP from the main opposition Republican People's Party (RPP). “When you execute such operations on the media, no matter what the reason behind it, it would inevitably create a ‘chilling-effect', discouraging members of the press from performing their jobs,” Turmen told MEE. “If the press is working under pressure and the fear of prosecution, self-censorship mechanisms would take over and eventually the public would suffer from this,” he said. When similar cases with Turkish and foreign journalists are considered, the legal wording plays a major role in what appears to be arbitrary practices. For instance, Geerdink said the broad wording of Turkish laws results in excessively vigilant practices. “Terrorism laws in Turkey are so broadly defined that they do not make any distinction between someone who actually breaches the law with propaganda and someone who reports [it],” she said. “Someone is waving a PKK (outlawed Kurdish armed group) flag and I am reporting it. The law does not make any distinction between the two,” she added. Zeyalov said that the Turkish authorities now understand that it is almost impossible to silence the foreign media. “There is always a way to report from inside the country, no matter to what degree foreign journalists are being kept on edge,” he said, adding that reports criticising Turkey's poor record of media freedoms do little, if anything, to keep the government in check. In this context, Geerdink said all the journalists working in Turkey should continue doing their job. “The world is actually seeing the direction where Turkey is going and you do not have to be critical about it,” she said. “You should just tell the world about what is happening.” The writer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
