Turkey

Turkish newspaper Sözcü publishes empty columns to protest against increasing government pressure

Posted on September 1, 2015 Leave a Comment

Sözcü, a Turkish newspaper critical of the government, has left the slots for opinion columns empty to protest the government’s “increasing pressure”, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“If Sözcü is silent, Turkey will be silent,” the newspaper’s headline said on Sept. 1, accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of “increasing pressure over the past year on opposition newspapers.”

Sözcü said it had faced 57 court cases and 67 criminal complaints over its news stories in the past year. Ten of its columnists were sued for compensation due to 60 articles, it added.

“President Erdoğan sues us for stories in which his name is not even mentioned. Stories mentioning his son’s or daughter’s name have become the subject of complaints. Their goal is to intimidate, pacify and control Sözcü and its columnists, while eliminating freedom of opinion and speech,” a front page editorial said.

The statement also referred to a well-known social media whistleblower nicknamed Fuat Avni, who recently claimed on Twitter that the government was “planning an operation to silence critical media” before the Nov. 1 election.

“No one from the government comes up and refutes this ugly claim, at which [pro-government circles] laugh up their sleeve,” Sözcü added, before vowing to “keep writing the truth despite the pressure that was not seen even during the coup eras.”

Source: Hurriyet Daily News “Turkish daily publishes empty columns on front page to protest gov’t” 1 September 2015 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?pageID=238&nID=87803&NewsCatID=339

Economic leverage increasingly used against media holdings in Turkey

Posted on July 16, 2015 Leave a Comment

Media ownership remains concentrated in the hands of a few large, private holding companies that earn the majority of their revenue from nonmedia assets. The centralization of public procurement decisions within the prime minister’s office under AKP rule has led to increasing use of economic leverage against these holding companies to force them to toe the party line, according to Freedom House.

The prime minister’s office directly controls the Privatization High Council (OİB), the Housing Development Administration (TOKİ), and the Defense Industry Executive Committee, which together account for tens of billions of dollars in procurement contracts per year.

Regading examples of the use of economic leverage to shape media ownership, Freedom House points to the wiretap recordings leaked in December 2013, that indicated that the government dictated which holding companies would purchase the Sabah-ATV media group in exchange for a multibillion-dollar contract to build Istanbul’s third airport. The Savings Deposit and Insurance Fund (TMSF) was also used to transfer media assets to supportive businessmen, as in November 2013, when Ethem Sancak, a Turkish businessman with close ties to Erdoğan, bought three media outlets previously owned by the Çukurova Group from TMSF.

Source: Freedom of the Press Index 2015 – Turkey

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/turkey#.VY0bykv_9EQ

Ever-growing self-censorship related to economic pressures in Turkey

Posted on June 18, 2015 Leave a Comment

The IPI special report on Turkey 2015, Democracy At Risk, points to the increased pressure on media in recent years, part of a drift toward authoritarianism that has led to a pervasive climate of self-censorship and one of the most troubling press freedom pictures in Europe.

Apart from bans on covering certain topics and direct pressures, the report highlights the political leaders’ efforts to control media via huge tax fines, calls for boycotts, advertisement embargos, seizing media outlets and transferring their ownership to supporters, frustrating journalists with legal cases on insult claims, targeting opposition journalists with social media trolls, and cultivating Internet sites and columnists tasked with scaring and intimidating critics.

The report expresses concern about the “ever-growing self-censorship related to economic pressure, particularly as companies active in other economic sectors acquire ownership of a greater number of media outlets, sometimes at the alleged behest of government officials in exchange for favour”. According to the analysis, “those companies are, in turn, increasingly dependent on state contracts and government connections to survive, leaving journalists with the choice of suppressing critical reports or losing their job, which, amid a polarised media and political climate, effectively can equal loss of career”.

As the report summarizes, the effects of these pressures ara that “media owners suppress criticism to protect their profits, journalists suppress criticism to protect their jobs, and the Turkish people are left with- out information necessary to make informed decisions or hold leaders accountable”.

Read more: Steven M. Ellis (2015) Democracy at Risk. IPI Special Report on Turkey 2015. Vienna: International Press Institute: http://www.freemedia.at/fileadmin/resources/application/IPI_Special_Report_-_Turkey_2015_Final.pdf

Tax investigations & fines of press common in Turkey

Posted on March 31, 2015

EUROPE — TURKEY — LICENCES, IMPORTS & AUDITS

In Turkey, tax investigations and fines have been recently used to punish media outlets, according to several press freedom groups.70 / 71 In February 2009, one of the country’s largest groups, Dogan Media Group, was hit with a USD500 million fine, for alleged tax evasion and fraud. Critics argued that the fine was a politically motivated move to silence dissent with the governing party, after Milliyet, one of the country’s leading papers, reports on AKP corruption infuriated the government. The fine allegedly forced Dogan to sell Milliyet to another holding company with strong ties to the government.72 In 2014, the International Press Institute released a statement on a wiretapped phone call of an alleged conversation between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin on that case: “Allegations that the prime minister asked the then-justice minister to interfere in a legal proceeding, and that the justice minister promised to use his influence to pressure the judiciary to deliver a desired result, are nothing less than shocking.”