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DisinformationTurn of the screw against information eight months before the elections in Turkey
Turkey’s parliament, dominated by MPs from President Erdogan’s party, passed a highly controversial disinformation law on Thursday.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will seek a new mandate in June 2023 in Turkey.
AFP
Turkey on Thursday passed a decried law on disinformation which, eight months before the general election, punishes up to three years in prison for anyone accused of spreading “false or misleading information”. Debated since the beginning of October, the 40 articles of the text officially baptized “press law” have been the subject of numerous amendments tabled in vain by the opposition which denounces for its part a “censorship law”.
Article 29, in particular, provides for prison sentences of one to three years for “spreading false or misleading information, contrary to the internal and external security of the country and likely to harm public health, disturb public order, to spread fear or panic among the population”.
In addition to newspapers, radios, televisions, the law targets social networks and websites which will be asked to denounce and deliver the personal information of their users accused of spreading false news. The opposition unsuccessfully tried to block this text tabled in May by AKP deputies – the Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will seek a new term in June 2023.
But with a majority of 334 seats out of 581 for the AKP and its allies in Parliament, the text had little chance of being stopped. In December 2021, the Head of State considered that social networks, first perceived as a symbol of freedom, had “become one of the main threats to democracy”.
With hammer blows
In the last hours of the debates and in a fit of mood, a deputy from the opposition CHP (social democrat) party, Burak Erbay, addressing the Turkish youth who “will vote for the first time in June” – and who bears the brunt of the severe economic crisis –, brandished his smartphone and crushed it with a hammer blow.
“You only have one freedom, that phone in your pocket. There you have Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. You trade. Today, October 12, if the law is passed by this Parliament, you can break them like that, my young brothers. Because you won’t be able to use it anymore.
Then turning to the government: “Let me warn you: in June 2023, these dear young people are going to teach you the lesson you deserve.” Meral Danis Bektas, elected HDP (opposition, pro-Kurdish), also considered that “this law is a declaration of war on the truth”. The law further stipulates that the presidency will be responsible for preparing a “Disinformation Bulletin every Monday (…) in order to inform the public about disinformation and false news”.
“Everyone will be affected”
The bill has aroused many concerns in journalistic circles and human rights organizations which had mobilized at the beginning of the month, masked in black in front of Parliament. A dozen journalists’ associations and unions, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF), denounced the text as an attempt at censorship by the government.
“Turkey is entering difficult times: everyone will be affected by this law”, tweeted Thursday evening the lawyer and co-director of an association for the defense of the press (MLSA), Veysel Ok, himself sued several times in the past, listing “the opposition, NGOs, associations of lawyers, journalists and ordinary citizens…”. According to RSF’s ranking, Turkey will rank 149th out of 180 countries in 2022 for freedom of information.
Before the law was passed, the Council of Europe had denounced an “obstructing” of the freedom of expression guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. At the beginning of October, he was worried about “the potential consequences” of the text, in particular a risk of “strengthening of self-censorship” in view of the next elections.
(AFP)