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“Biden’s actions are a violation of Israel’s sovereignty.”

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Turkey’s All-Out War on Kurds and Media by Uzay Bulut

  • On January 20, Turkish police opened fire at a group of civilians who were holding up white flags as they tried to remove the dead and wounded from the street in Cizre, one of the Kurdish towns under Turkish military siege. The Turkish police murdered two people from the group and wounded 12 others.

  • As the military siege and attacks in Turkey’s Kurdistan intensify with each passing day, the Kurdish media are under a new wave of repression — through arbitrary arrests, psychical violence or blocks on their website content.
  • “Our only aim today was to share what had happened in Van with the public in a healthy way. Today it was not us, but the people’s right to information that was taken into custody. We will not be silent.” — Reporter Bekir Gunes (from IMC TV), on Twitter. He was taken into custody for trying to report on the murders, but later released.

Since August, Turkey has been bombing and destroying its Kurdistan region in the same pattern: The Turkish government first declares curfews on Kurdish districts; then Turkish armed forces, with heavy weaponry, attack Kurdish neighborhoods and everyone living there. Much of this slaughter is presumably due to the Kurds having gained a large number of seats the latest elections — thereby preventing Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from attaining the super-majority he sought in order to change the Constitution and become “Sultan” for life, to rule as an autocrat. Kurds are also now asking for their right to rule themselves in their native lands, where they have lived for centuries.

Curfews in 19 Kurdish towns (from August 10, 2015 to the present) have penned Kurds in and enabled Turks to murder them more easily. So far, according to the Diyarbakir Branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), in the past few months, 170 civilian Kurds have been killed. Of these, 29 were children, 39 were women and 102 were men. At least 140 people were wounded; some have lost eyes, legs or arms; others are the victims of brain trauma.

On January 20, Turkish police opened fire at a group of civilians who were holding up white flags as they tried to remove the dead and wounded from the street in Cizre, one of the Kurdish towns under Turkish military siege. The Turkish police murdered two people from the group and wounded 12 others.

On Jan. 20, Turkish police in Cizre opened fire at a group of Kurdish civilians who were holding up white flags as they tried to remove the dead and wounded from the street. The Turkish police murdered two people from the group and wounded 12 others.

Refik Tekin, a cameraman of IMC TV and an award-winning journalist, was among the wounded but kept filming the attack even after he was shot. He is now in a hospital.

“The state implements a policy of subjugation on the Kurdish demand for a political status. It has become clear once again that this problem is not about ditches [which some Kurdish youths have dug, over objections by officials, to try to stop the progress of the Turkish troops]. The state attempts to annihilate the Kurdish demand for political status by using the ditches as an excuse,” said Raci Bilici, the head of the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Association.

As the military siege and attacks in Turkey’s Kurdistan intensify with each passing day, the Kurdish media are under a new wave of repression — through arbitrary arrests, psychical violence or blocks on their website content.

On January 1, police used water cannons and tear gas against local people marching from central Diyarbakir to the district of Sur to protest the curfews. Meanwhile, masked Turkish police detained Baran Ok, a cameraman of Kurdsat News Channel. Ferat Mehmetoglu, the local representative of Kurdsat, kept trying to explain to the police that Baran Ok was his cameraman. Disregarding Mehmetoglu’s pleas, the masked police drove off at high speed. At one point, after Mehmetoglu had gotten in front of the police vehicle, he barely avoided being run over when the officers drove off with his cameraman.

Meanwhile, the Dicle News Agency (DIHA) alleged that it obtained a restricted and official document, signed by the local Tank Battalion Command (part of the Turkish armed forces). The document instructs the Turkish armed forces operating in Kurdish towns and offers impunity: “No personnel shall forget not even for a moment that any personnel’s restraint from using arms for fear of prosecution might have very grave consequences, result in martyrs on our side; endanger the survival of the state and nation, [and] help traitors, terrorists and enemies of the state feel more powerful,” it said in part.

A day after DIHA covered this alleged document; its website was blocked for the 28th time by the Turkish Telecommunications Authority (TIB).

On January 5, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP Ferhat Encu, in a parliamentary motion, asked Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu about the document. He has not yet received a reply. No Turkish authority has so far either confirmed or denied the existence of such a document.

Kurdish journalists are also exposed to physical violence. On January 5, the special operations police forcibly gathered 37 people from their homes and took them to an indoor sports hall. One of them was Nedim Oruc, a journalist who had extensively covered the military assaults against the Kurdish town Silopi.

At first, no information could be obtained about Oruc who, according to DIHA news agency, had been battered, dragged on the ground and kidnapped by police in an armored vehicle. As a result of the public pressure brought to bear by the Twitter hashtag #NedimOrucNerede Where is Nedim Oruc), Silopi Security Directorate admitted that Oruc was in custody. He is now in Sirnak Prison.

The same day, the police raided a student dormitory and houses in the province of Van. The all-female, pro-Kurdish Jin (Women’s) News Agency reporter and university student Rojda Oguz and many other students were arrested. Rojda is now in Van prison.

“The Turkish public has a right to information from a variety of sources and perspectives, but the government is clearly trying to stifle pro-Kurdish news outlets with these arrests,” said Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator of Committee to Protect Journalists. “We call on Turkish authorities to release Nedim Oruç and Rojda Oğuz without delay and to stop harassing and obstructing journalists.”

On January 9, the “Women for Peace” group staged a demonstration in Izmir’s Bornova district to protest the recent military siege and attacks against Kurdish districts. Police detained the Evrensel reporter Eda Aktas, along with 12 others, while she was reporting on the protest — on the grounds that the press statement of the protesters violated the article 301 of the penal code, which makes it illegal “to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions.”

On January 5, in Silopi, three female Kurdish politicians — Sêvê Demir, Pakize Nayir, and Fatma Uyar — were murdered by state forces.

On January 10, in Izmir, when the Kurdish Congress of Free Women (KJA) organized a protest to commemorate the slain politicians, the police attacked the protestors, and detained 35 — including Dilek Aykan, the co-head of the Izmir branch of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The police also prevented Serfiraz Gezgin, a reporter from the Kurdish DIHA agency, and Hatice Erhan, a reporter from the left-wing magazine Kizil Bayrak, from filming the police crackdown. Other journalists just barely stopped police from detaining Gezgin and Erhan.

For months, the Turkish armed forces have been using hospitals and schools as military quarters, threatening, and even murdering medical personnel, and forcing thousands of Kurds to flee their native lands.

The state violence in Turkish Kurdistan escalates daily: On January 10, Turkish soldiers murdered 12 Kurds at close range in the province of Van. The office of the governor of Van announced that 12 PKK members were killed in the province. Photos of the slain Kurds were shared on the social media, apparently by Turkish security forces. A YouTube account called “Special Operations Team,” for instance, published a video entitled “The carcasses of the PKK – Van/Edremit” showing the bodies of slain Kurds, with upbeat music playing in the background.

Reporter Bekir Gunes, and cameraman Mehmet Dursun, working for IMC TV, were trying to follow up on news concerning the murders, but were prevented from doing so by the police. Both were taken into custody and released 11 hours later. “Our only aim today was to share what had happened in Van with the public in a healthy way,” Gunes wrote on his Twitter account. “Today it was not us, but the people’s right to information that was taken into custody. We will not be silent.”[1]

According to the 2015 World Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders, Turkey, out of 180 states, ranked 149.[2] “Turkey’s ‘underlying situation’ score,” it wrote, “covering such areas as cyber-censorship, lawsuits, dismissals of critical journalists and gag orders — actually worsened, showing that freedom of information continues to decline.” [3]

Lately, pressures on free speech and free press have been gaining new momentum in Turkey. The latest victim was a Turkish comedian and television host, Beyazit Ozturk (“Beyaz”) known for being apolitical and pro-establishment.

Beyaz found himself in the midst of violent threats after a teacher from Diyarbakir phoned into his popular live chat show and called for an end to violence in the region. She said: “Children are dying here. All of these bomb sounds, bullet sounds… People — especially babies and children — are struggling with a lack of water, with starvation. Please show some sensitivity. See us, hear our voice, extend your hand to us. Please let no more people die. Let no more children die.”

Beyaz thanked the caller, said that he too supported her message of peace and asked the audience to applaud her.

Kanal D [Channel D], the mainstream TV channel broadcasting the show, issued a statement saying they were tricked into allowing the caller on. The television channel’s officials added: “Dogan TV and Kanal D have always been on the side of the state from day one.”

The Turkish ministry of national education started an exhaustive hunt to find the caller. They said that no teacher with that name admitted to having called the show.

The teacher on the phone had not even said who killers were, but for some unfathomable reason, the Turkish nationalists, including state authorities, appear to have taken the remark personally, and interpreted it as an “insult to Turkish security forces” and “terrorist propaganda.”

Beyaz thereupon received a negative reaction from Turkish nationalists, and even death threats on social media. Many Twitter users and pro-government media outlets accused him “of allowing PKK propaganda on his show” and “not showing the required reaction to the caller.”

A popular hashtag said: “Beyaz! Apologize from the Turkish Police!”

A masked individual, allegedly a special operations police officer, posted on YouTube a video entitled, “We will not forget,” threatening Beyaz for allowing a caller from Diyarbakir to say on his show that children are dying.

In the end, Beyaz appeared on Kanal D again, apologizing:

“I am a son of a police officer. Whatever the entire Turkish nation thinks about that place [Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast], I also have the same thoughts. Of course, with all our hearts and souls, we want the terrorist organization to lay down its arms and this issue to be resolved as soon as possible. May Allah make it easy for all of our security forces in the southeast. We are on the side of our state and our nation.”

Finally, the police found the “criminal.” Ayse Celik, the art teacher who phoned in, is now being prosecuted for “making propaganda for the terrorist organization”. Eleven lawyers in the province of Antep who declared their support for the Celik’s message are also being prosecuted for “terrorist propaganda.”

This is the level of political and social pressure that a TV personality — who has had nothing to do with political activism throughout his entire career — is exposed to, in response to the most innocent and humanitarian wishes for peace uttered by a caller on his show. Imagine the enormity of the pressure on Kurds and journalists who try to expose the real crimes Turkey is committing against its Kurdish minority.

Uzay Bulut, born and raised a Muslim, is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara


[1] On January 10, which marks the Working Journalists Day in Turkey, Murat Verim, a Kurdish reporter of Dicle News Agency (DIHA), was detained following a police raid on his home in Mardin’s Dargecit district. On January 12, gendarmerie special operations forces attacked Mursel Coban, a journalist and photographer, as he was reporting on the funeral of the youths murdered in the Sur district of Diyarbakir. Coban said that the police beat him and tried to detain him, while threatening him with “disappearance.”

[2] In 2014, Turkey ranked 154 in the list. “Turkey’s rise in the index must be put in context,” wrote Reporters Without Borders. “It was due above all to the conditional release in 2014 of around 40 imprisoned journalists who nonetheless continue to face prosecution and could be detained again at any time.

[3] In another mass arrest on December 20, 2011, 58 people (many of whom were Kurdish journalists) were taken into custody in a police raid on their offices or houses in 8 provinces.

Turkey’s ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Terrorists by Burak Bekdil

  • “This is jihad tourism, and people do not understand this is a one-way tour. You cannot say ‘IS is terrorist but Hamas and Hizballah are not.’ Hizballah is the Shia version of IS. Hamas, IS and others are the Sunni branches of the same tree.” – High-level foreign diplomat.


In a high-level meeting about fifteen years ago, a young official accompanied the visiting Turkish land forces commander and his wife. The official, now a high-level foreign diplomat, still recalls the good memories from that visit, including the Turkish coffee cup they brought as a gift — a fine coffee cup still used every morning. “Daesh [Islamic State] will commit more and more acts of terror against Turkey and the West,” the diplomat says today. “Salafist ideology lures people — people with a worm in their brains. It offers adventures for young people. This is jihad tourism, and people do not understand this is a one-way tour.”

We recently met again, a month after an Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber killed 33 pro-Kurdish activists in a small Turkish town on Turkey’s border with Syria. “IS’s war is not about Israel or anything else,” said the diplomat. “All suicide bombings combined in the Middle East are smaller in number than those in Iraq only. It’s all about the Sunni-Shia divide.”

Anyone honest can only agree with what came next: “You cannot say ‘IS is terrorist but Hamas and Hizballah are not.’ Hizballah is the Shia version of IS. Hamas, IS and others are the Sunni branches of the same tree.”

Those words forcefully remind one of the gigantic Western hypocrisy that justifies Hamas.

“They will understand Hamas better when they will see jihadist bombs exploding in their cities,” the diplomat went on. “The terrorists are already targeting Jews on Saturdays, and the differing Islamist sects and on Fridays. Soon they will start coming on Sundays for everyone else.”

Coincidentally, about a week after our meeting, Turkey joined the anti-IS coalition forces and started to bomb IS targets in Syria. Too little, too late…

Meanwhile Turkish security forces are hastily trying to crack down on potential Islamic State terror cells inside Turkey; they fear bomb attacks in their own country, and especially at a time when the country goes to renewed parliamentary elections (on November 1).

After several months of reluctance, Turkey parted ways with IS because “they are terrorists.” But it remains loyal, though less supportive, to “the other, Sunni, branch of the same tree,” Hamas. Turkey’s Islamists, who now view IS’s Islamists as terrorists, view Hamas’s Islamists as perfectly legitimate ideological allies.

Turkish President (then Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, meeting with Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal (center) and Ismail Haniyeh on June 18, 2013, in Ankara, Turkey. (Image source: Turkey Prime Minister’s Press Office)

Recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan scolded the leader of a pro-Kurdish political party because the Kurdish man would not label the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a terrorist organization, “although they are on EU’s and U.S. terror list.”

It sounded as if Erdogan was not even aware of what he was saying: Hamas, which he supports, is on the same EU and U.S. terror lists as is the PKK.

Erdogan is trying to cut one branch of the tree while trying to grow the other — knowing all too well that they belong to the same tree.

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

 

Turkey’s “Spies,” EU’s “Human Rights” by Burak Bekdil

  • “He who ran this story will pay heavily for it.” — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey.


  • The two journalists, Dundar and Gul, are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization; espionage, and revealing state secrets. The prosecution has asked for life sentence for both journalists.

  • Really, why would a spy publish secret material in a newspaper instead of handing it over to his foreign controllers?

  • As Dundar and Gul completed their 11th day in solitary confinement, that human rights champion, the European Union, committed to push forward the process towards Turkish EU membership and open five accession chapters.

  • Dr. Bilgin Ciftci posted photos on Twitter juxtaposing the fictional character Gollum with Erdogan. He was fired from the hospital where he worked, then brought to court for insulting Erdogan, an offense punishable by up to four years in prison.

On January 19, 2014, the Turkish Gendarmerie command in southern Turkey searched three trucks heading for Syria. Accompanying the trucks were Turkish intelligence officers; the trucks had a bizarre cargo: In the first container, were 25-30 missiles or rockets and 10-15 crates loaded with ammunition; in the second, 20-25 missiles or rockets, 20-25 crates of mortar rounds and anti-aircraft ammunition in five or six sacks. The crates had markings in the Cyrillic alphabet. One of the drivers testified that the cargo had been loaded onto the trucks from a foreign airplane at Ankara’s Esenboga Airport and that, “We carried similar loads several times before.”

It was evident that the arms were bound for jihadists fighting against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regional nemesis, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Nearly two years later, Erdogan would nearly confess to the arms shipments. “What does it matter if it [the cargo] was arms or not,” he said on November 24. The incident still has grave consequences for some Turks.

In May 2015, the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published on its front page video and photographic evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria. A month later, President Erdogan himself filed a criminal complaint againstCumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief, the prominent journalist, Can Dundar, and the newspaper’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul. In a public speech, Erdogan said: “He who ran this story will pay heavily for it.”

On November 26, the journalists Dundar and Gul went to an Istanbul prosecutor to testify. On the same day, they were arrested under a court order. Their lawyers’ two appeals for their release were rejected.

They are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization; espionage, and revealing state secrets. The prosecution has asked for life sentences for both journalists. Still having nerves that remained cool, Dundar mocked the judiciary by calling himself “an inexperienced spy.” Really, why would a spy publish secret material in a newspaper instead of handing it over to his foreign controllers?

The journalists’ arrest left the entire world speechless. Several Western publications and institutions condemned their arrest. PEN International called for the immediate and unconditional release of both journalists and “once again called on the Turkish authorities to drop any other charges brought against Dundar for his legitimate expression as a journalist and political commentator.”

Turkey keeps on ridiculing itself while persecuting intellectuals and journalists whom the ruling Islamists passionately wish would not exist — or think, or write. In the past, the European Union (EU) had some leverage on member candidate Turkey, but in recent years, relations between Ankara and Brussels have grown largely transactional.

As Dundar and Gul completed their 11th day in solitary confinement, that human rights champion, the European Union, committed to push forward the process towards Turkish EU membership and open five accession chapters. To add insult to injury, the photo accompanying that news shows European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker hugging Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Was the European President congratulating the Turkish prime minister for catching and locking up two spies?

The EU, however, apparently does not give up on bolstering human rights and civil liberties in candidate Turkey — mostly, it ridicules itself as Turkey does.

On December 6, the EU said it will mark this year’s Human Rights Day with movies addressing individual rights, human dignity and the experiences of a varied group of people, bringing 33 documentaries to audiences in Ankara. That was not even a joke.

“In order to jointly reflect on these themes and highlight all the values which form the foundation of the European Union, we bring you the European Union Human Rights Film Days,” reads an introductory catalogue from the EU’s Turkey Delegation. Perhaps the European Commission’s ambassador to Ankara should consider organizing a private screening in the prison cells hosting journalists Dundar and Gul?

Apart from arresting its most prominent journalists for being “spies” because they had run a scoop, Turkey, these days, has the attention of the international community also for tasking a court with determining if the former Hobbit Gollum (from The Lord of the Rings) is good or evil.

Turkish doctor Bilgin Ciftci posted photos on Twitter juxtaposing Gollum with Erdogan. He was immediately fired from the hospital where he worked. Then he was brought to court for insulting Erdogan, an offense punishable by up to four years in prison. His lawyers made a point about Gollum not necessarily being evil. And then events took an even more tragicomic turn.

Part of the Gollum/Erdogan image for which Dr. Bilgin Ciftci is on trial in Turkey.

The makers the Lord of the Rings films, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, stated:

“If the images are in fact the ones forming the basis of this Turkish lawsuit, we can state categorically: None of them feature the character known as Gollum. All of them are images of the character called Smeagol … Smeagol is a joyful, sweet character. Smeagol does not lie, deceive, or attempt to manipulate others. He is not evil, conniving, or malicious — these personality traits belong to Gollum, who should never be confused with Smeagol. Smeagol would never dream of wielding power over those weaker than himself. He is not a bully. In fact he’s very loveable. This is why audiences all over the world have warmed to his character.”

Dr. Ciftci’s trial has been adjourned until February 23, when his and Gollum’s fate will be decided.

All of that may sound surreal in saner parts of the world. In [EU candidate!] Turkey, they are just bitter facts of life.

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Turkey’s “Fall and Fall” by Burak Bekdil

  • In reality, Turkey’s “post-modern Islamist” leaders were just Islamists gift-wrapped in a nicer package.
  • In a span of only seven months, more than 170 people have lost their lives in bomb attacks in Turkey. This number excludes more than 300 security officials killed by Kurdish militants, and more than 1000 Kurdish militants killed by Turkish security forces.

  • Russia is in the process of encircling Turkey militarily — in Syria, the Crimea, Ukraine and Armenia.
  • Russia’s fight is not about defeating the Islamic State, but about expanding its sphere of influence in the eastern Mediterranean, including the mouth of the Suez Canal. In a way, Russia is challenging NATO through Syria — the same way Turkey is challenging the Shiites through Syria, or Iran is challenging the Sunnis through Syria.

Less than a decade ago, many Western statesmen and pundits were racing ahead to praise Turkey’s Islamist leaders as “post-modern, democratic, reformist, pro-European Union Islamists” who could play the role model for less democratic Muslim nations in the Middle East. It was “The Rise and Rise of Turkey,” as Patrick Seale put it in the New York Times in 2009.

In reality, the “post-modern Islamists” were just Islamists gift-wrapped in a nicer package. Today, Turks are paying a heavy price for the neo-Ottoman, revisionist, miscalculated strategic vision of their leaders.

In July, a Turkish-Kurdish suicide bomber murdered more than 30 pro-Kurdish activists in a small town along Turkey’s border with Syria. Three months later, jihadist suicide bombers murdered more than 100 pro-peace activists in the heart of Ankara, in the worst single act of terror in Turkish history. The Turkish government manipulatively put the blame on a “cocktail” group of terrorists, including Kurds. In January, jihadists murdered 10 German tourists in Istanbul in another suicide bomb attack.

On October 10, 2015, jihadist suicide bombers murdered more than 100 pro-peace activists in the heart of Ankara, in the worst single act of terror in Turkish history. Pictured above, one of the bombs explodes in the background.

Most recently, on February 17, a Kurdish militant murdered nearly 30 people, including military personnel, just a few hundred meters away from the Turkish parliament in Ankara.

In a span of only seven months, more than 170 people have lost their lives in bomb attacks. This number excludes the more than 300 security officials killed by Kurdish militants, and more than a thousand Kurdish militants killed by Turkish security forces since a Turkish-Kurdish ceasefire ended last July.

Outside its borders, Turkey is floating on a sea of chaos too. The country is in an increasingly dangerous proxy war against a bloc of Shiite and Shiite-dominated governments in Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran, plus their Russian supporters. In addition, for Turkey’s neo-Ottomans, Lebanon, Libya, Israel and Egypt are all “hostile lands.”

Government officials privately claim that Turkey’s enemies were using terror groups to launch attacks on Turkish targets. “It’s like you know well who is behind the attacks but cannot prove it … The masterminds can be one or more of the countries we have locked horns with,” a senior security official told this author recently. Not a nice feeling to be the common target of a number of thuggish-to-rogue states with the capability of manipulating terrorists.

The players in the eastern Mediterranean theater, including Turkey, are running after a bigger slice of a smaller pie. Turkey’s sectarian ambitions are no secret. Nor are Iran’s. Today there are nearly 50,000 Shiite militiamen fighting in Syria, where a majority of the population is Sunni (as in Turkey).

Russia, on the other hand, since September 30 has been bombing targets hostile to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russian aircraft have carried out about 7,500 sorties, 89% of which have hit Assad’s opponents from groups other than the Islamic State (IS). Only 11% have targeted IS, which is everyone’s common enemy.

Russia has also piled up a very serious military inventory around the Caspian Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. Russia is in the process of encircling Turkey militarily — in Syria, the Crimea, Ukraine and Armenia. Most recently, Moscow announced the deployment of a new batch of fighter aircraft and attack helicopters to an air base outside the Armenian capital, Yerevan, 25 miles from the Turkish border.

Turkey looks helpless. Even its NATO allies look deeply reserved over any help they would be prepared to extend to Ankara in case of a conflict with Russia. Recently, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, warned the Turkish government that it cannot count on NATO’s support if its tensions with Russia escalated into an armed conflict.

Russia’s fight is not about defeating the Islamic State, but about expanding its sphere of influence in the eastern Mediterranean, including the mouth of the Suez Canal. In a way, Russia is challenging NATO through Syria — the same way Turkey is challenging the Shiites through Syria, or Iran is challenging the Sunnis through Syria.

There are a number of questions concerning the possibility of peace returning to this part of the world.

  1. Will the Muslims ever stop hating and killing each other, including bombing their mosques, along sectarian lines and end their 14-century-long war?
  2. Will there be functional governments in Damascus and Baghdad any time soon?
  3. Will the Sunni world ever stop its own radicalization without peace being imposed upon it from the non-Muslim world?
  4. Will the Shiite world ever control its own sectarian expansionist ambitions?
  5. Will the Sunni and Shiite worlds ever stop hating Jews and committing themselves to annihilating the State of Israel?
  6. Will Turkey’s Islamists ever realize that their neo-Ottoman ambitions are too disproportionate to their power and regional clout?
  7. Will the Western world be prepared to challenge Russia, the new thuggish kid on the block called the eastern Mediterranean? If yes, how?
  8. Will the players in the eastern Mediterranean ever be happy with a bigger pie and their slices not necessarily getting smaller?

The answers of this author to those questions are negative.

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Turkey vs. Free Press by Uzay Bulut

  • “What I’m going through can face all journalists out there. They can use laws to put you in prison just for mentioning the word ‘PKK’ in your news story. They take this as ‘praising the terrorist organization.'” — Ocak Isik Yurtcu, former editor of Ozgur Gundem. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

  • “We expose their war crimes; and they respond by blocking us.” — Ramazan Pekgoz, editor, Dicle News Agency.

  • Of the 580 issues of Ozgur Gundem, criminal cases were opened in relation to 486 of them. Its editors-in-chief were sentenced to a total of 147 years in prison.

  • One cannot help asking: Why does Turkey try to destroy free speech that much? What is it that all those Turkish governments have been trying to hide?

  • “These bans take place because the state does not want the incidents in Kurdistan to be exposed.” — Eren Keskin, editor-in-chief and lawyer for Ozgur Gundem.

  • In 103 years in Turkey, 112 journalists and writers have been murdered, mostly Armenians and Kurds. — The Platform of Solidarity with Arrested Journalists (TGDP)

Ever since clashes between the Turkish army and the Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) intensified in late July, the pressure of the government against the Kurdish media, including bans on Kurdish news outlets as well as psychical violence against journalists, have become increasingly widespread.

On October 4, for instance, Turkish police in the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir detained two Kurdish journalists: Murat Demir of Ozgur Gun TV (Free Day TV) and Serhat Yuce of Dicle News Agency. The police seized their cameras and equipment. A police officer put a gun to Yuce’s head and took both into custody. The journalists were released after five hours, but fined for “violating the curfew” imposed on the town.

On October 6, Turkish police abducted Filiz Zeyrek, a female journalist working for the Kurdish JINHA (Women’s News Agency), in the southern province of Adana and drove her around for half an hour while interrogating and photographing her. The police then released her at a park.

Earlier, on September 28, Turkish police armed with assault rifles raided the offices of the Dicle News Agency (DIHA), the newspaper Azadiya Welat (Freedom of the Country), Aram Publishing House and the Kurdi-Der (Kurdish Language Association) in Diyarbakir, andarrested 32 journalists. The police seized their ID cards and phones, and eventually took the journalists to police headquarters. One of the reporters, Dicle Muftuoglu, said the police broke down the door, did not show a search warrant and did not allow the journalists to call their lawyers. The journalists were released late at night.

In the meantime, since late July, more than 100 pro-Kurdish websites have been totally blocked— including Dicle News Agency, Ozgur Gundem newspaper, Firat News Agency, Hawar News Agency and RojNews.

This month, the website of another Kurdish news agency, JINHA (Women’s News Agency), which focuses on women’s rights issues in Kurdistan and the Middle East, has also beenblocked by Turkey’s Presidency of Telecommunication (TIB).

Turkish authorities claim that most of the sites have been banned because “they are close to the PKK or support terror acts,” according to the newspaper Hurriyet.

“Security institutions make demands. And action is taken according to these demands. … The bans start at the direction of the security institutions. These institutions report the sites they have chosen to the Presidency of Telecommunication (TIB). First, a decision of administrative closure of those sites is made; then, in 24 hours, the decision is presented to the court for its approval.”

The authorities say that, “the security institutions specify the sites used by terror organizations and the sites that praise or propagate terror acts. Then based upon this specification, the administrative process gets started.”

Last month, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) ceased broadcasting all of the TV channels on Digi Medya 1 and 2, as well as Guc Medya 1 and 2 satellite providers.

Fourteen of these are pro-Kurdish TV channels – including Ozgur Gun TV (Free Day TV.)

RTUK claims that it has ceased broadcasting the channels because “they have not complied with the right of publication.” However, the editors of some of the blocked Kurdish sites told Gatestone Institute that they do not agree with the excuses of the state authorities.

Faysal Dagli, chief editor of BasNews, said:

“The banned outlets are either Kurdish language sites that have ties with Kurdistan, or that are dissident, and might cover incidents the government does not want the public to hear about. In this current phase, when a cycle of violence has been restarted, these kinds of operations by the state are a familiar method of dimming facts that refer to the state. The government controls such phases through its own media. What matters to them is to restrict the influence of the dissident or ‘uncontrollable media’ at times when unexpected events are taking place, or else to prevent news from coming out of Kurdistan. The Turkish army’srecent bombardment of the Kurdish village of Zargala in Qandil reveals this purpose.”[1]

Ramazan Pekgoz, editor of Dicle News Agency, said:

“Since July 24, our four web addresses have been blocked. When we expose what is really going on, we are subjected to attacks and censorship. Before the ban, we covered an incident in which Kurdish workers were tortured by a Turkish police officer in Yuksekova. In 2011, our reporters were the first to cover the Roboski massacre. We also covered the Kurdish extrajudicial murders and massacres in 1990s. But every time the war in the region intensifies, they ban us…This has been the state mentality for years. In 1990s, they murdered our colleagues. They bombed our offices, and closed down the papers that worked with us. Today, they block our web content. We expose their war crimes; and they respond by blocking us.”

Erkan Capraz, chief editor of Yuksekova News, said:

“Whatever happens in Kurdish cities, we report them in accordance with journalistic ethics. So we are shocked that we are faced with such a censorship. We already knew that journalists in Turkey are not free and there are restrictions to the freedom of expression. We have been brought to court several times. We somewhat understand these trials and investigations. Sometimes a prosecutor or a citizen is disturbed by some news reports and makes a complaint about that outlet and an investigation is opened against the reporter or the editor. But before that ban, there have been no complaints or complainants against us. The Turkish prime ministry has sent a list to the Presidency of Telecommunication (TIB) based on an intelligence report and wanted it to close down the websites in that list. I do not think there could be such a practice in any country other than Iran.

“But it is so wrong to deprive our hundreds of thousands readers from our outlet. This is a disgrace to the freedom of expression and of the press. Our readers ask us why we have been blocked. There is only one explanation we can make to them: ‘We have exposed the truth.’ Turkey is committing a huge crime by blocking our outlet now. We will continue our legal struggle. If necessary, we will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. This lawlessness should be exposed to the entire world.”

The ban on the Yuksekova News website was removed on October 20 — after 87 days.

Mehmet Oguz, chief editor of the Turkish page of Rudaw, noted:

“In recent weeks, there have been new events in Turkey such as the war between the PKK and the Turkish army and Turkey’s participation in the global coalition against ISIS. And after these developments, house raids and arrests of Kurds are on the rise. What attracts my attention is that the ‘new Turkey’ (the term Erdogan uses to define Turkey under his rule) is acting with its old reflexes. In times of crises, censorship is the first thing they think of. They did so in 1990s as well.

“The Turkish mainstream media outlets use the same language against Kurds and have taken the stance of a Turkish ‘commando’…

“As the Kurdish media has been banned, all these incidents make us ask: Is there something that is going on secretly?”

Apparently, pressures, prohibitions against media and even murders of journalists have been a state tradition.

The Platform of Solidarity with Arrested Journalists (TGDP) reported that in 103 years in Turkey, 112 journalists and writers have been murdered. The TGDP notes that most of the murdered journalists were Armenians or Kurds.

The Armenian journalists were massacred mostly during the 1915 Armenian Genocide; Kurdish journalists were massacred mostly between 1990 and 1994. (See the list of TGDP.)

Armenian intellectuals — including journalists, editors, writers or publicists — were also slain during the deportation campaign of the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, 1915, they were arrested in Constantinople (Istanbul). Some of them died on the way to their exile, others died after reaching it.

The last Armenian journalist murdered in Turkey was Hrant Dink, known for his advocacy of human rights and minority rights in Turkey. As editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, Dink had written and spoken about the Armenian Genocide and had been under prosecution for violating Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code — making it illegal to insult Turkey or Turkish government institutions — and “denigrating Turkishness.” Dink was shot dead outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul on January 19, 2007.

One of the main targets of the Turkish state has been Ozgur Gundem, particularly known for its extensive coverage of Kurdish matters and the conflicts between the Turkish army and the Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).

Since Ozgur Gundem was founded on May 30, 1992, “authorities led a concerted campaign of arrests, bans and trials against Ozgur Gundem, eventually forcing the paper to close in April 1994,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “In addition to the legal harassment, journalists at the paper were frequent targets of violent reprisal by unidentified assailants.”

During that period, Turkey held more journalists in prison than any other country. In 1992, 14 journalists and two newspaper distributors were murdered.

And in 1993, nine journalists and 13 distributors were murdered.

In 1994, seven journalists and two distributors were murdered.

Of Ozgur Gundem‘s 580 issues, criminal cases were opened in relation to 486 of them, and its editors in chief were sentenced to a total of 147 years in prison.

Ocak Isik Yurtcu, one of the former editors-in-chief of the paper, became the symbol of the pressures against the Kurdish press. The sentence against Yurtcu amounted to 15 years’ imprisonment.

While serving his sentence in prison, Yurtcu said in an interview:

“My problem is not unique. … What I’m going through can face all journalists out there. They can use laws to put you in prison just for mentioning the word ‘PKK’ in your news story. They take this as ‘praising the terrorist organization.’ How can you write about the Southeast without mentioning the PKK?”

After Ozgur Gundem was banned, the paper often changed its name in order to be able to continue the publication, but courts kept on issuing bans on publishing papers that followed the same line as Ozgur Gundem.

The successors of Ozgur Gundem were also victims of attacks: On 3 December 3, 1994, three bombs hit the printing facilities of Ozgur Ulke, one of the successors of the paper, and its offices in Istanbul and Ankara. One member of staff was killed and 23 injured.

Today, the website of Ozgur Gundem has been blocked in Turkey.

Eren Keskin, one of the chief editors of Ozgur Gundem and a human rights lawyer, told Gatestone Institute:

“I oppose it when these pressures against the Kurdish media are [depicted as being] restricted to the rule of Tayyip Erdogan. This did not start with Erdogan or the AKP. Ever since the Turkish Republic was established, the Kurdish media has been under pressure. I was the lawyer of Ozgur Gundem for years. So these unjust practices should not be evaluated by just looking at what is happening today. The state ideology towards the Kurdish people, Kurdish political movement and Kurdish media has never changed. And these bans take place because the state does not want the incidents in Kurdistan to be exposed. This has been the state policy for decades; it is nothing new.”

Abdurrahim Boynukalin (center of left image), a Turkish Member of Parliament from the ruling AKP Party, leads a mob in front of the offices of Hurriyet newspaper, September 6, 2015. At right, the shattered windows of the building’s lobby, after the mob hurled stones.

Ever since the Turkish state was founded in 1923, Turkey has never had freedom of the press.

The first government ruled by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) — through its Law on the Maintenance of Order enacted in 1925 and the Press Law in 1931 — closed down or censored many newspapers with various political inclinations, arrested many journalists and banned many foreign newspapers and magazines from entering Turkey. The Law on the Maintenance of Order gave the government the “right” to close down newspapers.

The minister of interior then, Sukru Kaya, described the “press policy” of the government: “The press is to comply with the political regime of the place where it is based. Just as every regime seeks for a type of citizen suitable for itself; it also seeks for a type of press suitable for itself.”

During the rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s first president, at least 130 newspapers, magazines and books were banned. During the rule of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (1950-1960, from the Democrat Party), 161 were banned.[2]

“It is not enough to say that there was no freedom of the press in that [one-party] era,” wrote the historian, Professor Mete Tuncay. “In the Ottoman autocracy, too, the press was not able to write what the government did not want. In the one party era [during the CHP administration of republican Turkey], however, the press could write only what the government wanted it to write.”[3]

The Greek-language media has also become almost extinct in Turkey.

During the government-instigated attacks against the Greek Christians of Istanbul in 1955, Muslim Turks in the city attacked everything owned by Greeks — their homes, offices, businesses, cemeteries, churches, and schools, among other things. And the Greek-language press of Istanbul was no exception.

“The offices and printing presses of eight newspapers were destroyed,” wrote the author Speros Vryonis Jr. “All three principal dailies, the Apoyevmatini, the Tachydromos, and theEmbros suffered heavy losses. The first two had both their offices and printing establishments completely wrecked. In the case of the Embros only its offices were destroyed since it had no printing press of its own.”

Due to many aggressive and discriminatory state policies against Greek Christians — including the 1955 attacks and the 1964 expulsions of Greeks from Turkey, the Greek population of Istanbul and Anatolia has dropped tremendously.

Today, Apoyevmatini, Turkey’s only Greek-language newspaper, faces closure. Mihail Vasiliadis, its editor-in-chief, said there were about 120,000 Greeks in Istanbul during the 1930s and 1940s, at which time the newspaper had a circulation of 35,000. But today, there are only 605 Greek families in the city, and 600 of those are Apoyevmatini subscribers. The offices of the paper, which was established in 1925, were closed down in October 2014 due to economic difficulties. Ever since, Vasiliadis has been trying to put the paper together from his home. Vasiliadis explained that he has had difficulty even covering rent payments.

For decades, it seems that Turkish state authorities have tried to silence all dissident voices in the media — particularly Kurdish, Greek and Armenian journalists. One cannot help asking: Why does Turkey try so hard to destroy free speech? What is it that all those Turkish governments have been trying to hide?

Uzay Bulut, is a Turkish journalist, born and raised a Muslim, and based in Ankara.

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