Category: World

Journalists Sibel Yükler, Deniz Nazlım and Yıldız Tar were reportedly ill-treated and detained by police officers who on Tuesday intervened in a protest organized by the Broadcasting and Printer Workers Union (DİSK BASIN-İŞ), the Dicle Fırat Journalists’ Association (DFG) and Mezopotamya Women Journalists Platform in Ankara’s Ulus district.

The other journalists, who were prevented by police officers from reading out a written statement condemning the arrest of their 16 colleagues, moved the protest to the Ankara office of DİSK BASIN-İŞ.

Slamming the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s crackdown and police violence against Kurdish journalists, they said: “Let it be known that journalism is not a crime. Journalism has no nationality.”

Turkish authorities arrested 16 journalists, including DFG co-chair Serdar Altan, Mezopotamya news agency (MA) Editor-in-Chief Aziz Oruç and JinNews News Director Safiye Alagaş, on June 16, after they had been detained in southeastern Diyarbakır province on June 8, in a move that sparked outrage among opposition politicians, press members and rights activists.

Kurdish culture and language remain repressed in Turkey, with most pro-Kurdish and Kurdish language media outlets closed down and several journalists from Kurdish or pro-Kurdish outlets in prison on trumped-up terrorism charges.

It is common for journalists in Turkey, which has a poor record on freedom of the press, to face threats, physical attacks and legal harassment due to their work.

Rights groups routinely accuse the Turkish government of trying to keep the press under control by imprisoning journalists, eliminating media outlets, overseeing the purchase of media brands by pro-government conglomerates and using regulatory authorities to exert financial pressure, especially after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan survived a failed coup in July 2016.

Turkey, which is among the top jailers of journalists in the world, was ranked 149th among 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2022 World Press Freedom Index, released in early May.

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The Kurdish leader made the call in a column for the T24 news website on Tuesday, underlining that if the HDP expects a “Kurdish initiative” from the other opposition parties, the party should also launch a “Turkish initiative” and “embrace the whole of Turkey with self-confidence, without allowing our victim identity to plunge us into the psychology of oppression or anger.”

The “Kurdish initiative,” which was first announced by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in 2009, refers to the loosening of many restrictions on Kurds in Turkey to improve their rights and end the decades-long conflict between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces.

Demirtaş said all opposition parties should enter into a period of “change” and find new ways forward to stop the “terrible decay” in all areas of Turkey’s governmental system, which is due to the acts of “unbelievable unlawfulness and immorality” committed by the AKP and its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Noting that the ruling AKP pursues politics based on perceptions rather than facts, especially during election periods, Demirtaş warned that even if the opposition produces strong and concrete projects and policies based on facts, it still can’t reach large masses without changing the perceptions created by the AKP.

The opposition parties should work on common strategies to overcome this situation, the Kurdish leader said, adding that they would win the elections by taking at least 80 percent of the vote if they used a common language and the media, held joint activities, came up with joint projects to solve people’s problems and ultimately nominated a joint presidential candidate.

“In today’s conditions, institutional cooperation between the Table of Six and the HDP-based opposition seems unlikely,” Demirtaş said, accusing the parties, including the HDP, of the inability to respond to perceptions produced by the AKP with “a bold move of change.”

The “Table of Six” refers to the leaders of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Felicity Party (SP), the İYİ (Good) Party, the Future Party (GP), the Democrat Party (DP) and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA).

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, İYİ head Meral Akşener, SP leader Temel Karamollaoğlu, DEVA chairman Ali Babacan, GP chair and former prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and DP chair Gültekin Uysal in February signed a declaration confirming their resolve to introduce a “strengthened parliamentary system” should they unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2023 elections.

The leaders were criticized due to the fact that the pro-Kurdish HDP, the second-largest opposition party in parliament, was excluded from the declaration.

The HDP also repeatedly criticized the CHP and its ally, İYİ, for their stance on Kurds’ rights and efforts to distance themselves from the pro-Kurdish party amid a crackdown on its members that accelerated after 2016.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court in June 2021 accepted an indictment filed by a prosecutor seeking closure of the HDP and the imposition of a political ban on 451 party members as well as a freeze of the party’s bank accounts for alleged ties to the outlawed PKK.

“As I said, change takes courage. Now is the time to show that courage and start the change through ourselves. Be assured, the rest will come. … Change must begin now so that it can continue after the election,” Demirtaş said.

Arrested on Nov. 4, 2016 on terrorism-related charges, Demirtaş has since then remained in prison despite two European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings in 2018 and 2020 that said Demirtaş was imprisoned for “political” reasons and not for “legal” reasons, ordering his “immediate release.”

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Access to the Turkish editions of the two international news websites operating in the country was blocked on Thursday evening based on a demand from the country’s media watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK).

When readers went to access these websites on Thursday evening, they saw a notice saying that access to the websites had been blocked by the decision of an Ankara court.

The two media outlets had refused to comply with an order from RTÜK in February to obtain broadcasting licenses, which they said would amount to censorship.

“The ban on Deutsche Welle cannot be justified by anything other than the sheer arbitrariness of Erdogan’s autocracy,” DJV chairman Frank Überall said in a statement on Friday. “The people in Turkey should be able to continue to have access to independent and critical journalism like that offered by Welle,” he added.

The DJV chairman also called on the German government to press Turkish authorities to have the ban lifted.

“Deutsche Welle is Germany’s foreign broadcaster, after all. That puts the issue on Berlin,” he said.

Deutsche Welle General Director General Peter Limbourg said his agency refused to apply for a Turkish license because it would harm independent broadcasting.

“In our extensive correspondence, as well as in personal conversations with the head of the media monitoring agency, we explained why DW cannot apply for such a license,” Limbourg said in a statement.

“For example, licensed media in Turkey is obliged to delete online content that RTUK considers inappropriate. This is unacceptable for an independent media organization,” he added.

“DW will take legal action against the now imposed access ban.”

Meanwhile, RTÜK also released a statement on Friday saying that an access ban had to be imposed on DW and VOA because they failed comply with an order to secure broadcasting licenses. The watchdog said the ban on these websites would be lifted if they applied for licenses, adding that RTÜK always supports freedom of the press, pluralism and independent journalism.

RTÜK Chairman Ebubekir Şahin also said in a tweet on Friday that RTÜK is protecting the rights of legal media outlets against illegal media outlets in the country.

The US State Department criticized the new rules when they first went into force in February, stressing that a “free media is essential to a robust democracy”.

The new media regulation applies to foreign providers of Turkish audio and video content.

On Friday the two news websites were inaccessible in Turkey without the use of VPN technology. Both shared instructions on their social media accounts about using VPN to access their content.

The move by RTÜK has been described by media outlets as an attempt at censorship and at expansion of the Turkish government’s control over domestic media to foreign outlets, which are the only source of free and independent journalism for some people in Turkey, where the majority of the media is controlled by the government.

Deutsche Welle and VOA challenged RTÜK’s move at the time and announced that they would appeal its decision and take legal action in court. As for Euronews, the news outlet removed the content that necessitated the license, hence was no longer required to get a broadcasting license, according to an announcement from a RTÜK member in April.

In 2019 Turkey revised its media regulations to allow RTÜK to supervise online broadcasts. Since the new regulations went into effect, various streaming platforms including Netflix and Amazon Prime have applied for and received licenses.

RTÜK is a controversial agency that is accused of contributing to increasing censorship in the country by imposing punitive and disproportionate sanctions on independent television and radio stations critical of the Turkish government.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 90 percent of the national media in Turkey, which was ranked 149th among 180 countries in the RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index, is owned by pro-government businessmen and toe the official line.

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Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Tuesday hailed a “very good agreement” with Turkey to back Swedish and Finnish membership in NATO and said the move would make the alliance stronger, Agence France-Presse reported.

“Taking the next step toward a full NATO membership is of course important for Sweden and Finland. But it’s also a very important step for NATO, because our countries will be security providers within NATO,” Andersson told AFP in an interview.

Andersson rejected claims that she had conceded too much to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in order to convince him to drop his veto to Stockholm’s membership.

“I think this is an agreement that I can stand fully behind,” she said after lengthy talks in Madrid with Erdoğan and her Swedish counterpart.

Andersson said she had been able to lay out to the Turkish leader changes in Sweden’s terrorism legislation set to come into force next month.

“And of course, we will continue our fight against terrorism and as NATO members also do so with closer cooperation with Turkey,” the Swedish premier said.

She insisted that Swedish authorities were working on extradition requests from Turkey in accordance with Swedish legislation and a European convention on extradition.

Andersson said she expected NATO leaders meeting Wednesday in Madrid to formally agree to invite Sweden and Finland to join the alliance without any surprises.

But she conceded that the process to become full members could take some time and throw up more hurdles.

“Thirty countries have to sign the accession of course and all 30 parliaments and you never know what’s going to happen.”

“But I also know that the member states in NATO see the fact that Sweden and Finland both increase the security for NATO as a whole if we were to become members.”

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“We understand Turkey’s security concerns very well,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters after talks in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

“We understand that… maybe a special operation might be needed,” he added. “Turkey’s security concerns must be tackled fully and permanently.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned over the past few weeks that he may soon launch a new offensive in Syria against Kurdish fighters waging an insurgency against the Turkish state.

These include the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which formed a crucial part of an international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group.

Both Washington and Moscow have called for restraint from Turkey.

But Erdoğan has said he expects Turkey’s allies to “understand and respect” the proposed military campaign.

He said on Monday that the offensive would begin “as soon as our preparations are finished”.

Iran is a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an important trading partner for Turkey.

The two sides’ relations were rocked earlier this month by the arrest of eight people Turkey alleges worked for an Iranian assassination team scoping out Israeli targets in Istanbul.

The two ministers did not directly address the arrests in their prepared remarks.

Turkey has launched a string of offensives in Syria since 2016 targeting Kurdish militias as well as Islamic State group jihadists and forces loyal to Assad.

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The former leader of the UK’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who currently serves as a member of the British parliament, has described an ongoing post-coup crackdown on free speech and government critics in Turkey as “utterly wrong,” calling on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to take action on the rights violations stemming from the crackdown.

Corbyn answered Turkish Minute’s questions after giving a speech in support of hundreds of victims of Turkey’s post-coup crackdown as well as activists, joined by EU parliamentarians, who gathered in front of the court in Strasbourg on Friday to protest rights violations in Turkey and ask the ECtHR to take swift action against them.

The top European human rights reviewing body is accused by victims of human rights violations in Turkey that culminated after an abortive putsch in 2016, when the government launched a crackdown on non-loyalist citizens under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, of not expeditiously processing applications from the victims or of issuing rulings in favor of the Turkish government in some cases.

“I’ve been a representative of many Turkish and Kurdish people in my constituency for a very long time. I’m also a friend of the unions, the trade unions, in Turkey. The crackdown on free speech, the crackdown on unions, the crackdown on professionals, the crackdown on journalists is utterly wrong. And the European Court of Human Rights ought to act. Turkey is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and should adhere to it,” Corbyn said, responding to a question about his views on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s post-coup crackdown.

Corbyn addressed the crowd gathered in front of the ECtHR building in Strasbourg, and called on people to unite in the face of oppression.

“Human rights know no borders,” Corbyn said.

Answering a question about his thoughts on the protest, Corbyn said: “I want human rights for all. That means the right to know, the right to free speech, the right to assembly and the rights of journalists to be able to work without being threatened with imprisonment. And I concluded my speech with a call for the freedom for Julian Assange, because of everything he’s done to try and bring about peace in the world. To me, this is about universal human rights. And I’m pleased to have been here today.”

Corbyn said Turkey’s Western allies prioritize a military relationship with Turkey and thus are very cautious about addressing the rights violations in the country.

“If human rights are to mean anything, they have to be universal, and you have to implement human rights law, whatever the consequences in every country,” he said.

Corbyn also talked about a decision by the UK government, announced in December, to lift a ban on the sale of military equipment to Turkey that was put in place after Ankara’s successive military operations against Syrian Kurds, and said the move was a mistake.

Ismail Demir, Turkey’s chief defense industry officer, announced in May that the UK had completely lifted all the restrictions on the export of defense products to Turkey that were brought in following Ankara’s 2019 offensive on northeast Syria.

“I think it was a mistake to lift the arms ban. But I also think that we need to have much more control over the arms trade around the world. The arms trade is often the driver of conflict, not the solver of conflicts,” Corbyn said.

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The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office recently ordered the detention of 20 lawyers, accusing them of ties to the movement based on payphone call records and affiliation with Bank Asya, which was closed by the government following a 2016 coup attempt due to its links to the Gülen movement and other associations connected to the group.

Seventeen of them were detained in operations simultaneously carried out in İstanbul, Ankara and Bursa provinces on Friday, Bold Medya said, adding that the police also seized their computers, mobile phones and books, claiming they were terrorism-related documents.

The Turkish government accuses the faith-based Gülen movement of masterminding the coup attempt on July 15, 2016 and labels it a “terrorist organization,” although the movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

The so-called “payphone investigations” are based on call records. The prosecutors assume that a member of the Gülen movement used the same payphone to call all his contacts consecutively. Based on that assumption, when an alleged member of the movement is found in call records, it is assumed that other numbers called right before or after that call also belong to people with Gülen links.

Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government launched a war on the Gülen movement after the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013 that implicated then-prime minister and current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family members and inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy, the AKP government designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. The government intensified the crackdown following the coup attempt.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

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Thousands of victims of a purge carried out by the government in the aftermath of a failed coup in Turkey in 2016 as well as activists and EU parliamentarians are expected to gather in front of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on Friday to protest rights violations in Turkey and ask the ECtHR to take swift action against them.

The ECtHR is accused by the victims of human rights violations in Turkey that culminated after a failed coup in 2016, when the government launched a crackdown on non-loyalist citizens under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, of not expeditiously processing applications from the victims or of issuing rulings in favor of the Turkish government in some cases.

Friday’s protest is being organized by the Peaceful Actions Platform, an umbrella organization consisting of 24 civil society groups. The protest will be aired live by MC EU TV and the Peaceful Actions Platform YouTube channel.

Yasemin Aydın, coordinator of the platform, told Bold Medya in an interview that the ECtHR is turning a blind eye to the human rights violations taking place in Turkey under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and just idly watching the violations happening every day.

Aydın accused the ECtHR of remaining silent regarding the rights violations faced by followers of the Gülen movement, in particular, accused by the Turkish government of masterminding the failed coup on July, 15 2016.

The Gülen movement, inspired by the views of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, is accused by the Turkish government and Erdoğan of masterminding the coup attempt and is labeled a “terrorist organization,” although the movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

“The number of victims has reached into the hundreds of thousands. Such rights violations are regarded as crimes against humanity by United Nations working groups. But the ECtHR is silent,” Aydın said, adding that the goal of the protest is to ask the rights court the reason for its silence.

Some European parliamentarians such as Rampi Roberto (Italy) and Thorhildur Sunna Aevarsdottir (Iceland), both members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will also extend their support to the protestors and will deliver speeches. Members of the European Parliament Marie Arena (Belgium), Costas Mavrides (Greece) and Pierrette Herzberger Fofona (Germany), PACE members Catarina Rocha Ferreria (Portugal), Hannah Bardell (UK), former Turkish soccer player Hakan Şükür and former NBA player Enes Kanter will take part in the protest via video messages.

Şükür and Kanter, who are both outside Turkey, are among the victims of the crackdown on the Gülen movement due to their affiliation with the group and face prison sentences on bogus terrorism charges.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

Some of these people had to take illegal and risky journeys in dinghies to Greece because their passports had been revoked by the government.

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