Ankara strengthens its arsenal against the press before the elections
A few months before crucial elections in Turkey, the government has reinforced its already well-stocked repressive arsenal against the press and the opposition, worry journalists and activists.
Rally at the Nef Stadium in Istanbul on November 27, 2022, six months before the next Turkish presidential election in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be a candidate for his succession.
AFP
“The disinformation law is one more weapon against us in the government’s arsenal,” laments Gokhan Bicici, editor-in-chief of the independent news site dokuz8NEWS, in Istanbul. “They already had cupboards full of guns and dozens of tools and weapons at their disposal” to silence the media, he told AFP from his office on the Asian side of the city. He cites in particular “the insult to the president”, an accusation which in recent years has allowed the prosecution of tens of thousands of critical voices – students, sportsmen and even a former Miss Turkey.
In October, the Turkish Parliament passed a new law that punishes the dissemination of “false news” by up to three years in prison, without defining what can constitute false information… The AKP (Islamo-conservative) party and its nationalist allies of the MHP, in the majority in Parliament, voted for amendments deemed “dangerous” and even “dystopian” by civil rights defenders.
“Discretionary power”
For digital law specialist Yaman Akdeniz, this law grants “a wide discretionary power to the authorities” with a clear risk of arbitrariness in the pre-election period. “It is therefore not surprising that the first person prosecuted in this capacity is the leader of the main opposition party,” he notes.
Probable presidential candidate of June 2023 facing the head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, boss of the CHP, is being prosecuted for having accused the government on Twitter of being responsible for the “methamphetamine epidemic” which is hitting the Turkey.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan ardently defended the law, denouncing social networks “without limit, neither morality nor ethics which fan polarization and the fire of hatred”. However, he himself relied on Twitter to mobilize his supporters during the July 2016 coup attempt.
With the disinformation law, “the government will be able to exercise considerable control over social media,” fears Emma Sinclair-Webb, representative of Human Rights Watch. “The law puts (them) in a very difficult position: either they comply and remove content; or they disclose the data of their users under penalty of huge fines, ”she explains.
Came into force when the head of state’s rating was at its lowest due to the economic crisis and inflation exceeding 80%, the text allows the authorities to suspend the internet or restrict access to social networks as after the November 13 attack in Istanbul (six dead, 81 injured).
“More pressure”
Also in the sights are Kurdish journalists and media: Fatma Demirelli, director of the NGO supporting freedom of expression P24, cites “new arrests targeting a large number of journalists since this summer”. “We fear that this new law (…) will further aggravate the situation,” she told AFP.
At the end of October, nine journalists were arrested in Istanbul and other cities in the country, including Diyarbakir, in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, accused of links with movements described as “terrorists”, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK ) to which authorities attributed the Istanbul bombing.
This brought the number of journalists behind bars in Turkey to 76, according to a count by the press freedom monitoring platform, Expression Interrupted. Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey 149th – out of 180 countries – in its press freedom index.
Fatos Erdogan, journalist for dokuz8NEWS, says reporting is getting harder and harder. “We have already been victims of violence but I have the feeling that there will be more pressure”, she believes, saying to herself “worried for our safety”.
“Lawsuits and threats are part of our daily life,” confirms its editor, Gokhan Bicici. “Being careful and avoiding being a target as much as possible is now the main concern of journalists in Turkey, even for the most free of them,” he adds.
AFP
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