Turkey as a Jailer of Journalists
Turkeyâs notoriety as a jailer of journalists is relatively recent. Although it has never had a good reputation in terms of âliberalâ democracy thanks to regular, and illiberal, coup dâĂ©tats, it only began to attract the focused attention of international civil society groups concerned with news media freedom in 2011. Until that point the number of journalists in prison in Turkey was in single figures and consisted of the usual suspects: long-time adversaries associated with leftist or Kurdish causes. However, the number of journalists behind bars, just for doing their job, doubled from four to eight in 2010â2011 prompting the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to write to the then Minister of Justice in the AKP government, Sadullah Ergin, to note its âalarmâ (CPJ 2012).
The newly detained had mostly been reporting on Kurdish issues but also included Ahmet Ćık and Nedem Ćener of the Kemalist establishment flagship broadsheet newspaper, Cumhuriyet. Alongside the CPJâs âalarmâ at this sudden increase was the âconcernâ of the Council of Europe whose Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg had found the state of media freedom in Turkey âparticularly worryingâ and urged the authorities to take urgent measures to uphold media rights and ââŠpromote pluralism and a climate of tolerance towards criticism and dissentâ (Council of Europe 2011).
It is hugely ironic that the statistics which sparked the âalarmâ and âconcernâ in 2011 would now be viewed with reliefâas the situation for press freedom in Turkey has deteriorated markedly since then. The following year, the CPJ figure jumped even more dramatically, from eight to 47, and further still, to 81, in 2016. At the time of writing (January 2020), the figure has reduced back down to 47 but Turkey remains at the top of the global league tables for the number of journalists in prison, second only to China with 48 on CPJ figures.
This volume looks behind the headline figures to pinpoint why and how this has happened. It argues that the issue should be seen in the context of Turkish politics going back to the foundation of the Republic in 1923 and is the latest iteration of the three-way power struggle between the Kurds, the Kemalists and Islamists which has been waging since then. The AKP is the current winner in this battle having seen off its Kemalist, Kurdish and rival Islamist opponents, and the repression of news media freedom is part of its ongoing quest to consolidate its power. Hence the reason there are so many journalists imprisoned in Turkey is due to the AKPâs determination to quash scrutiny and political opposition.
This has been achieved by the securitisation of political opposition of all kinds as nominal cover for the repression of it and reflects the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the Ankara government in recent years (Esen and GĂŒmĂŒĆĂ§ĂŒ 2016; see also Ăzbudun 2014; Akkoyunlu and Ăktem 2016; Tansel 2018). However, even illiberal governments want to appear liberal, and it is much more âacceptableâ to lock up a terrorist than an activist for example, so if you can call the activist a terrorist, fewer questions will be asked as quickly (Jackson 2005). It is not argued that this was necessarily believed by observers, but it has consistently been the rhetorical response of the AKP government to perceived political opposition (Martin 2018). The imprisoning of journalists is particularly heinous to liberal democratic sensibilities so the securitisation discourse has been at the core of the AKPâs strategy in repressing the news media.
This was in evidence during President ErdoÄanâs a state visit to the UK in May 2018âwhich included an audience with Queen Elizabeth II. When questioned by the British media about the high numbers of their Turkish counterparts in prison, ErdoÄan replied firstly that the figures were wrong and secondly that the journalists under investigation were terrorists:
We are talking about⊠those who have been caught red-handed bearing weapons, those who have been killing people. Are we supposed to call them journalists just because they bear the credentials and identity cards? (The Guardian, May 15, 2018)
Journalism has been a target of illiberal governments in Turkey for many decades in order to stem the reporting of wider illiberality (Yesil 2014). It was the collateral damage of maintaining a strong state in the cause of Kemalist âdemocracyâ and this continued after the AKP came to power. More recently however, journalism has been treated as a form of political opposition in its own right and securitised to justify this persecution which has manifested itself in the very high number of imprisoned journalists in Turkey and its current notoriety surrounding media freedom.
From Bad to Worse
There is little dispute, outside of the AKP inner sanctum, that Turkeyâs press freedom record has gone from badâduring the Kemalist and early AKP yearsâto much worse since 2011. The news media cannot tell any âtruth unto powerâ without fear of reprisals and this has deteriorated further since the attempted coup dâĂ©tat of July 2016 which facilitated a clampdown on dissent of all kinds.
In its early years in power the AKP followed the pattern initially established by the authoritarianism of the Ataturk era. Thereafter the media developed as an adjunct of the state linked by a network of patronage (Yesil 2016). This took place within the well-documented efforts of the Kemalist elite in Turkey to keep Ataturkâs legacy on track through regular military interventions creating an uneasy hybrid of authoritarianism in the name of âdemocracyâ (Dodd 1990). Except during acute phases of the coups, the press was nominally free as long as it did not transgress the interests of the state too much. Moreover, the news media, as adjuncts to those in charge, were also, at times, complicit at this time in creating a hostile environment for any forces considered a security threat to the Kemalist state such as leftist and Kurdish groups, and, to a lesser extent, Islamism (Yesil 2016).
Hence Turkey did not have a strong tradition of the fourth estate as a scrutinising force even before the AKP took power, so it is not argued here that it introduced illiberalism in press matters to Turkey. However, the situation has deteriorated under the AKPâand this decline reflects the fortunes of the party in the ongoing power struggle between the dominant factions in Turkish politics. The pattern and severity of news media repression have echoed the power struggles being fought by the AKP at any one time. The 2011 increase was the result of the Koma CivakĂȘn Kurdistan (Kurdistan Communities UnionâKCK) and, to a lesser extent, Ergenekon investigations. To add weight to this argument, the number dipped to seven in 2014 because the Kurdish KCK and Kemalist Ergenekon detainees were released as the AKP refocused its attentions onto the GĂŒlen movement following the split. It then increased again after July 2016 as attention on GĂŒlen sharpened following the attempted coup dâĂ©tat. Journalism has been implicated in the AKPâs various attempts to reduce the influence of the ever-changing threats to its power.
So, the current dire state of news media freedom is arguably the worse it has ever been1 and should be seen through the lens of AKP self-interest. Journalists have been imprisoned when their output or the cause they are associated with is perceived by the AKP to be a long-term threat to its power base. From 2007 to 2013 this was Kurdish and Kemalist journalists. Since 2013, the GĂŒlen movement has joined the fray following the acrimonious split with the AKP in December of that year. The AKPâs concern at the potential of GĂŒlen and his followers to wreak revenge on its electoral fortunes initially distracted its attention from the Kurds and Kemalists although by 2015 they were back in its sights. Since 2016 allege...