This week’s sad but equally bizarre events in Turkey have shown us it is not just the blatant disregard for the rule of the law that we should be worried about but the core values and ideals that unify and sustain a society have eroded to such an extent that it is now truly alarming. Even an appalling terror attack did not generate a universal condemnation. Equally, the leaders of the country saw nothing wrong in exploiting a tragedy in order to serve their political ends. Nobody believed what they heard; conspiracy theories got more and more fantastical.
On the last day of March, while an unexplained power cut paralysed more than half of Turkey’s 81 provinces for several hours, two armed militants of a shadowy left wing group gained access to Istanbul’s Caglayan courthouse and took a prosecutor hostage in his office.
The prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz was investigating and by all accounts making headway with the unsolved case of a 15-year old Berkin Elvan, a victim of police actions during Gezi events. Two gunmen linked to far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and claiming to seek justice for Elvan threatened to kill their hostage if their demands were not met. The 6 hour-long negotiations and desperate pleas by Berkin Elvan’s father for the release of the prosecutor could not prevent a fatal shootout with the security forces.
The police operation in which both the militants and their hostage were killed was hailed by the President as a success long before a thorough investigation into the incident was carried out.
It was not just President Erdogan that jumped into conclusions. The leader of the main opposition Kemal Kilicdaroglu questioned the coincidence with the power cut and appeared to be blaming the intelligence agency while the siege was going on. The Prime minister wasted no time to clamp down on any kind of public dissent.
The media, too, behaved in less than an ideal fashion. Using a video distributed by the gunmen showing them holding a gun to the prosecutor’s head under the group’s banners while the incident was still in motion fell short of professional and ethical standards.
The government responded by threatening to ban all demonstrations. During the funeral of Mr Kiraz, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told the media that the government would not tolerate demonstrations in the street “whoever they are and whatever their intent is”. He also announced he ordered a ban on media organisations that published the photos of the previous day’s hostage takers to report from the funeral. Several media sources including Hürriyet, Vatan, Cumhuriyet, Taraf, Samanyolu TV, CNN Türk and Dogan News Agency were barred from entering Istanbul’s Eyup Sultan Mosque where the prosecutor’s funeral ceremony was held. .
While it is reasonable and acceptable to expect the media to refrain from endangering human lives and contacting hostage takers directly while the incident is going on, it is not reasonable to ask them not to report it. At times of such incidents, the media has to accept the instructions of the authorities and it is not unusual to impose a temporary black-out while the operation is underway and lives are at stake. Journalists must be wary of being used by criminals to spread their propaganda and fear. However, the fight against terror cannot be used as a pretext to deny the public the right to be informed.
In Turkey, the government has imposed more than 150 gag orders during the last four years. It is not surprising that this latest order has met with apprehension. Disproportionate action such as launching an investigation by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Terror and Organized Crimes Police Department into seven daily newspapers for “making propaganda of the terrorist organization” is a blatant attack on freedom of speech.
As CNN’s veteran Turkey observer Ivan Watson put it, last Tuesday’s events revealed several truths about today’s Turkey. “The country is tense and confused after years of back-to-back political crises” and more importantly “Turkey feels increasingly vulnerable to demons of its own making”.
This post is also available in: Turkish
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