US Report: Press Freedom in Turkey on A Constant Decline

US annual reports track decline in Turkish press freedom

Press freedom in Turkey has been on a constant decline in recent years, an in-depth look at the human-rights reports published annually by the U.S. State Department has revealed.

The first line of the 2010 report said that “the government continued to limit these [press] freedoms in significant numbers of cases.”

In the first years of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government, the reports focused on the role of restrictive laws in limiting press freedom, while later surveys drew attention to the role of government officials, including the prime minister.

Starting in 2005, the reports noted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s readiness to file lawsuits against cartoonists and columnists, as well as his later quarrels with prominent journalists and media owners over what was written about him and his party in the press.

The increase in such cases was followed by a spike in the number of critical journalists arrested in the Ergenekon case, an alleged gang purportedly formed to topple the government in 2003 and 2004.

One unchanged aspect of the State Department reports is the oppression of some pro-Kurdish media organizations, despite the fact that many laws have been amended to expand freedom of expression.

According to the State Department’s 2003 report, the number of jailed journalists in Turkey was between four and 34, with the different figures reflecting ongoing disagreement over which prisoners were legitimate journalists, and which were jailed for carrying out their journalistic duties.

After legal changes to expand press freedom were brought to the agenda in 2004, the government said no journalists were held on speech violations that year, but the U.S. report noted 43 prisoners claiming to be journalists who had been charged with a variety of crimes.

Self-censorship in the media

Crucially, in 2005, the government prepared a draft law that would allow prison sentences for a number of press-related crimes, overruling restrictions in the 2004 Press Law. Erdoğan’s first reported lawsuit against the press also came this year, when the prime minister sued the satirical magazine Penguen for depicting him as an animal in a cartoon.

“The government intimidated journalists into practicing self-censorship,” read the first line of the 2006 report, which counted 26 jailed journalists, and noted an increasing number of lawsuits filed by Erdoğan.

“Prime Minister Erdoğan, through his attorneys, filed 59 cases on the grounds of defamation, of which 28 were pending at year’s end. Among the 31 cases decided, 21 rulings were in favor and 10 against Erdoğan,” the report said.

In 2007, there were 21 jailed journalists, according to the report, which devoted significant space to the raid against weekly Nokta over an article on the relationship between unnamed civil-society groups and the military.

The same report noted the government’s efforts to place further restrictions on the media by adopting amendments to the Anti-terror Law.

Government officials harsh against media

The 2008 report broke with the earlier ones by emphasizing critical statements from senior government officials. “Senior government officials, including Prime Minister Erdoğan, made statements during the year strongly criticizing the press and media business figures, particularly following the publishing of reports on alleged corruption in entities in Germany connected to the ruling party,” it read.

Also that year, the Prime Ministry did not renew the press licenses of six journalists, claiming they had reported inaccurate material.

Several large holding companies that own news agencies were reportedly concerned about losing business opportunities if their journalists wrote articles critical of the government, with one journalist claiming that his senior management discouraged such reporting.

Tax fine breaks record

The substantial tax fine against the Doğan Media Group came up in the 2009 report, which said, “Some observers considered [it] to be related to the political editorial line of the media conglomerate’s print and broadcast outlets.”

Sunday, April 10, 2011

SOURCE: Hürriyet Daily News