Turkey and press freedom: Publish and be damned
It was a coincidence that Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, received this year’s Chatham House prize from Britain’s queen in London on November 9th only hours after the European Commission released its annual report on Turkey’s progress towards the European Union.
The timing threw a harsh light on Brussels’s criticisms, but Mr Gul batted them off. As usual, the EU demanded that Turkey open its ports and airports to Greek-Cypriots. But Mr Gul rejected any idea of a unilateral Turkish concession. The EU has not lifted the isolation of Turkish-Cypriots, despite its promised to do so in 2004, he said. Quietly, his British hosts agreed that more concessions should come from the Greek-Cypriots.
The EU talks are barely moving, because so many chapters are blocked by Cyprus or by other EU countries. Mr Gul told The Economist that Turkey would pursue the reforms to join even if most of the chapters remained closed, and added that it was possible Turks might end up rejecting membership anyway. Yet he disputed claims that Turkey was turning away from the West, observing that these were often designed merely to exert “psychological pressure”. Turkey is confident that, if it goes along with America’s missile-defence system, it will be back in the West’s good books despite its harsh criticisms of Israel and soft treatment of Iran.
According to Economist, There were some more positive passages in the commission’s report. It cited somewhat better treatment of religious minorities, the easing of restrictions on Kurdish-language broadcasting, improvements to the penal code, new constitutional measures to increase civilian control over the army and an acceptance of Armenian-language textbooks in schools.
But the commission was highly critical of the way Turkey treats its press. As many as 40 journalists are in jail awaiting trial or having been convicted. Several newspapers have sacked columnists who have been too critical of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The commission repeats its worries about assaults by the tax authorities on Turkey’s biggest media conglomerate, the Dogan group, which began only after its reporters started digging into corruption among AK members. Many prominent journalists confess that they now practise self-censorship for fear of offending Mr Erdogan.
Yet Mr Gul largely rejects these concerns. He insists that freedom of the press is a cornerstone of Turkish democracy and declares that “everybody is free to write what they want.” He has promised to look at legal or even constitutional amendments that might improve the protection of journalists but he says that most cases concerned leaks or the abuse of court-privileged information.
Others are not convinced. Reporters without Borders, a lobby group, ranks Turkey 138th of 178 countries for press freedom in 2010, the lowest in a decade. William Horsley of the Association of European Journalists frets about an increasingly restrictive climate. A group of journalists demonstrated in Ankara recently and sent a letter of protest to Mr Erdogan demanding reforms. At a conference in early October Ercan Ipekci, a Turkish editor, listed 27 articles in the penal code that are used to harass reporters and said Turkey risked becoming a dictatorship.
The AK party’s opponents share these criticisms. Karen Fogg, a former EU ambassador in Turkey, says the commission report “provides an interesting political agenda for the opposition.” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), has consolidated his control over his party. He may yet stop the AK party winning next June’s election outright. In any case Turkey needs to do more to get a better report next time.
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