{"id":254,"date":"2013-11-22T15:55:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T15:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=254"},"modified":"2013-11-22T15:55:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T15:55:32","slug":"tightening-the-noose-on-turkeys-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/tightening-the-noose-on-turkeys-media\/","title":{"rendered":"TIGHTENING THE NOOSE ON TURKEY\u2019S MEDIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The state of freedom of expression in Turkey has been a growing concern for a long time.<\/p>\n

The space for free flow of ideas and information has been shrinking. Especially in recent years, \u201cAnti-Terror Law\u201d has systematically been used to silence critical voices.<\/p>\n

Just as we begin to think it cannot get much worse, a new revelation shows that the journalists in Turkey are indeed facing something even more alarming: total disregard for the law of the land by the very courts that should be administrating it.<\/p>\n

Those same law enforcement bodies that should be protecting the rights of the journalists have now been demonstrated to conspire with the security services against members of the media.<\/p>\n

T24 is one of the few independent online outlets in Turkey. In what could be described as a \u201cWatergate for Turkey\u201d revelation, T24 published a document written by the head of the country\u2019s secret services, MIT.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/t24.com.tr\/haber\/mit-sahte-isimle-gazeteci-dinlemeyi-hakimlerle-koordineli-yaptik\/244513<\/a><\/p>\n

In it, The National Intelligence Organization, MIT defends its actions for surveillance of TARAF newspaper journalists,\u00a0 Ahmet Altan<\/strong>,\u00a0 Yasemin \u00c7ongar<\/strong>,\u00a0 Markar Eseyan<\/strong>,\u00a0 Amberin Zaman<\/strong>,\u00a0 Mehmet Baransu<\/strong> and a writer and \u00a0academic\u00a0 Prof. Mehmet Altan, whose phones it tapped <\/strong>between 2008 and 2009.<\/p>\n

In court orders allowing the surveillance, the journalists in question were mentioned by codenames in foreign languages.<\/p>\n

Facing a criminal complaint from several of those journalists, the director of the National Intelligence Organisation Hakan Fidan sent an official explanation which was leaked to T24, explaining why and how it was done.<\/p>\n

Fidan says that MIT did not intend to mislead the court in order to obtain orders to wiretap, but that it acquired the permission by co-ordinating its actions with the judges themselves. \u00a0The use of codenames was not in order to deceive the courts, but in accordance with the secrecy required by the security service practices, and that it was understood as such by the courts.<\/p>\n

In other words, the courts are said to have gone along with the illegal practice and allowed intelligence services to wiretap journalists whose names were withheld from judges.<\/p>\n

Another very disturbing detail is the reason cited for the need for surveillance. It was the suspicion aroused by the contacts the journalists were having with foreigners.<\/p>\n

In Turkey, we have witnessed journalists being subjected to lengthy pre-trial detentions, often on disputed and dubious evidence. Some have been sentenced to life imprisonment for their work. We have seen many examples of legal processes turned into witch-hunts against those critical of the government.<\/p>\n

Civil or criminal suits of investigations have contributed to widespread self-censorship.\u00a0 Politicians and officials have been launching intimidating suits against critical journalists and writers.
\nAccording to BIA Media Monitoring July-August-September 2013,\u00a0\u00a0 48 journalists were assaulted and 11 detained after the Gezi protests of last summer. \u00a0As of October 2013, 66 journalists and 27 publishers were behind bars. 28 journalists, authors and media representatives were convicted to a total of one life sentence, 329 years and 2 months of prison.<\/p>\n

This latest and chilling development is sure to further aggravate an already corrosive media environment in Turkey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The state of freedom of expression in Turkey has been a growing concern for a long time. The space for free flow of ideas and information has been shrinking. Especially in recent years, \u201cAnti-Terror Law\u201d has systematically been used to silence critical voices. Just as we begin to think it cannot get much worse, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}