Increased Attention of Turkish Government Toward Media Quite Understandable

Muyesser Yildiz, a Turkish journalist who was incarcerated for 16 months in a Turkish jail after being charged with participating with others in an antigovernment conspiracy, commented to Radio Sputnik on the state of press freedom in Turkey in light of the raids and arrests of opposition journalists over the weekend.

MOSCOW, December 16 (Sputnik) — Turkish authorities arrested 27 people on Sunday, including Zaman newspaper chief editor Ekrem Dumanli and Samanyolu television channel chief executive Hidayer Raraca, along with several other journalists. Those arrested were accused of plotting an antigovernment coup.  Suspects were charged with “forgery, fabricating evidence and forming a crime syndicate to overtake the sovereignty of the state,” it had earlier been reported.

Muyesser Yildiz noted that she does not believe that the December 14 operation, which resulted in a search of the offices of major publications and the arrest of journalists, was aimed against the media. In her words, "this operation is the result of a power struggle between the government and supporters of Fethullah Gülen’s Gülen/Hizmet movement. If we are to recall the one-year anniversary of the large-scale anti-corruption operation, the increased attention of the authorities toward the media becomes quite understandable. We are accused of supporting a coup d’état and the change of government via the articles which we write. Yes, from this point of view, the operation of December 14 was directed against the media. However, if we are to dig a bit deeper, it becomes obvious that the basis of all this is a struggle for the redistribution of political power."

Ms. Yildiz told Sputnik that the political motivation of the prosecution of the media was clearly demonstrated by the fact that the journalists’ arrests were made live on television. She stressed: "Those who would want to hide from the justice system would have done so a long time ago.  The arrests of people who had not planned on hiding, in front of so many cameras; I consider this to be exclusively a tool of intimidation, of political manipulation…A [real] trial is not conducted by such methods. This alone forces one to doubt the impartiality and objectivity of the investigation in this case."

Yildiz also notes that approaching the operation which took place over the weekend from a press freedom standpoint is misguided.

"This is a fundamentally erroneous way to look at the issue…we are talking about things that Turkey does not have. We do not have democracy, freedom of the press, or fairness in judicial proceedings. I do not see any point arguing about something that does not exist. If the operation against these journalists was not conducted in connection with their journalistic activities, then it must be ‘proven’ specifically in what way they had intended to carry out an anti-government coup. Therefore [the authorities] resorted to a simple method – accusing journalists of supporting a coup via the 'contracted' writing of articles and outright propaganda. In reality nothing of this sort occurred. In my opinion, the reasons for the operation were entirely political, and therefore it cannot be interpreted from the perspective of press freedom, democratic principles and principles of human rights."

In 2013, Turkish media had conducted a probe, accusing high-profile officials of corruption. Tayyip Erdogan declared the charges a conspiracy by antigovernment plotters seeking to bring him down. On Monday, Erdogan responded to EU criticism of the crackdown by telling them to “mind their own business”.