Turkish Media Adjusts Further to Military Discipline

by Ismet Imset

What would have happened if the situation in Anatolia in the early 20th century had been different? For instance, what would have happened had Mustafa Kemal been born in Mosoul instead of Salonika, had he named the republic which was founded after the war of liberation fought by the Turks and Kurds, as 'the Kurdish Republic' and had he taken the name of Ata-Kurd (Father of Kurds) instead of Ataturk with a special parliamentary decision. What would have happened had all citizens of the Kurdish government been called Kurds, had they been banned from using Turkish names, had Turks been banned from having Turkish broadcast, had all broadcast been in Kurdish?

"Would we Turks have accepted this?" asked Milliyet columnist Ahmet Altan in one of his recent articles. "Had we been forced to write our novels, stories and poems only in Kurdish, had we been forced only to listen to Kurdish songs or publish our newspapers only in Kurdish... Had Kurdish been the only language in our schools, had Turkish education been banned, had we faced arbitrary imprisonment only for saying 'we are Turks, we have a history and a language.' Had the special teams constantly harassed us as 'suspects' and had we been insulted constantly only for being Turks. Had our houses and apartments been burned down on claims we assisted 'Turkish terrorists' would we Turks have accepted this?"

Last week, for asking this question in one of his published daily commentaries titled "Atakurd," Altan found himself in a matter of hours unemployed and joining the growing army of Turkish intellectuals treated by officials as short of being traitors.

He was never given an answer to his questioned. As for the response to his argument that the Kurds in Turkey today demand only what the Turks in such conditions would have naturally demanded, it was but a slip of paper abruptly ending his contract with the newspaper.

"Milliyet's editorial policy is based on correct reporting and free commentaries," a front page editorial declared after the incident. "But... a newspaper's writers prepare their free commentaries according to that newspaper's main policy.... To defend the right of Mr.Altan to defend his views in the said article is one thing, to defend the principles of a newspaper is another."

The editorial, which carefully vouched for the paper's continuing support to the principles of modern Turkey's founder Ataturk, also claimed it would continue to defend the freedom of expression in Turkey even without Altan. Since his sacking, at least two more Milliyet writers who supported him have been laid off. The management of Milliyet is pleased. The Turkish military, suspected of being behind the ordeal, is clearly more pleased than all...

Turkey's military repression of the national press has always existed but as seen in this recent Milliyet incident is becoming more systematic in view of the country's futile military attempts to crush its growing Kurdish rebellion. There is little if no tolerance for criticism of the official policy and if the death squads, police or courts fail to tackle with dissent, newspaper owners are always there as a last resort.

"I received a letter from the editor," explained one columnist recently. "It said 'my resignation would be accepted' if I insisted on writing on Kurdish or human rights issues." Koray Duzgoren, another prominent researcher on Kurdish affairs, was recently sacked by the daily Hurriyet without compensation for similar reasons. He learned he was fired while dressing in the morning to go to work. The papers were delivered by a special notary.

"We had an editorial meeting," explains another Istanbul- based newspaper executive. "We were told not to concentrate on human rights or Kurdish issues." In many cases, as soon as what officials deem as "controversial" reports are seen, media bosses receive a brief and harsh phone call from military commanders demanding them to sack the reporters concerned. Television reporters who have interviewed Kurdish villagers claiming Turkish troop attacks on their homes have been suspended from duty. Magazine journalists have been sacked only for echoing the terrifying accounts of civilian victims of Turkey's military solution to the Kurdish crisis and when possible, such reporters have been punished severely. Newspaper employees have almost always suffered the most.

Even during the recent incursion into northern Iraq, reporters asking for information on conflicting Turkish statements were verbally warned by commanders to either write what they were told by the military or be treated as serving "the enemy."

Perhaps for the first time in its repressive history of press freedoms since 1915, Turkey is now fully mobilized once again for a concerted effort on part of government, military and media to cover up what is really going on in its Kurdish regions. Where direct censorship does not work, the military trusts on its pressure for self-control, skillfully using the threat of outdated and undemocratic laws as much as highly required state subsidies and advertisements as a leverage. Recently the same tactic was used even in an attempt to censor Reuters, with the Turkish Union of Banks launching a protest against the news agency after being contacted reportedly by the military. Where both methods fail, there is always what Amnesty International has referred to as "censorship by the bullet." At least 23 journalists working on Kurdish issues have so far been assassinated.

Most of the suffering of this gross cover-up has clearly been inflicted on the country's openly pro-Kurdish press which has faced a variety of attacks of sorts from assassinations, arbitrary confiscations, kidnappings, disappearances to multiple bombings. Three such newspapers have over the past two years been forced to close down and the Yeni Politika, newly on the streets, is now tasting its share of arbitrary state attacks in need of more support than any other single publication. Its journalists are being harassed and detained without explanation as copies of the newspaper are seized by police almost on a daily basis.

Milliyet's recent and sudden sacking of Altan has led only to new problems within the newspaper also boosting internal strife on editorial policy. Those who insisted on the freedom of expression in support of Altan were briefly dealt with in the same manner and this Wednesday, an in-house declaration announced that the daily's editor-in-chief Ufuk Guldemir was no longer employed.

Observers of Turkish press freedoms concluded this was but the end of a serious "operation" to silence this daily which under Guldemir's management had sparked off some anger for critical coverage of the Kurdish dispute. "One by one, they are dealing with all of the papers with independent news policies and all independent minds," as put by one of his colleagues. Guldemir himself could not be reached for comment.

The "objectivity" of Turkish press reports where taboos such as Ataturk and the Kurds are concerned have always been challenged. Reporters writing especially on human rights and Kurdish issues are overtly critical of editorial policies -- which often include a complete rewriting of facts back at desks in Istanbul and adding a touch of pro-Turkish nationalist captions and headlines to news stories. There are also oustanding examples in which whole interviews have been changed to accomodate with military policies.

But the priority for the Turkish press, faced on one hand with the threat of severe punishment and on the other with a nationalitist popular demand, became even more clearer very recently.

Claiming on one hand to report objectively on the facts on Turkey's latest incursion in Iraq, Turkey's mass circulation dailies with the support of televisions launched a major campaign to collect money for the military. Executives of the Turkish Press Association publicly expressed support to the armed campaign, siding with the policy, and since then have used the papers to gather vast donations from Turks at home and abroad to "support the Turkish soldiers -- or the Mehmetcik" Little remains of any ethics the Turkish press had but at least some 400 billion liras was reportedly collected to be added to the vast share of allocations the military already has from the national budget.

This bizzare situation, though, is said to be only the result of a skilful exploitation of economic problems in the media sector, best observed in promotion campaigns built on distribution of everything from a bar of soap to bed sheets to readers, and state control over money and laws. Many journalists argue it is the economic harship which has dragged the media into becoming the victim of this major military repression campaign, supported by a mere rubber-stamp government-- aimed at silencing any serious opposition.

The censorship, meanwhile, stems back two years to a meeting held at the Chief of Staff headquarters in Ankara for media owners and executives. In the words of one of the participants, "it was made clear there that the generals expected all to support their policies without question and would regard those who failed to, as enemies." Prominent newsmen were "taught" by psychological warfare experts during this meeting on how stories and commentaries should be written. "This is a national cause" one colonel explained. Those failing to abide by the rules set out by the military have since been promptly punished. They have either been cut out of subsidies and credits or prevented from covering major news issues. Dozens of journalists have faced trials and many are still behind the bars.

According to moderate official circles in Ankara, one of the major problems behind today's censorship stems from the amount of control National Security Council chief General Dogan Bayazit has established on press and public relations. His military-dominated council is known to cooperate extensively with Military Intelligence and have basically robbed the duty of "psychological warfare" from the civilians. Military Intelligence Chief Gen.Atilla Tuzman and Gen.Bayazit have personally demanded the arrest and subsequent trial of many journalists. There are reports now that a secret budget has been allocated to a special committee they head, to further control the press. There are also claims, from pro-Kurdish news circles, that they are the masterminds of armed campaigns targeting them.

Whichever the case, many independent observers believe the issue at hand covers more than the freedom of expression or general press freedoms in Turkey.

While objective observers of Turkey's Kurdish conflict and human rights are ruthlessly being silenced, the press in general is motivated by an immense trend of ethnic-Turkish nationalism. The odds are that in pursuing the current cover- up of truth, what is at stake is Turkey's overall grasp of realities and, perhaps, the future stability of a country, which is ending up in the whirlpool of believing in its own lies.

It is probably a result of this concern that Altan asked in his controversial commentary: "Is it worth to shed so much blood and put the country into a bottleneck only in order to reject the demands of a people who we accept as equal, while we ourselves would have demanded the same things under different circumstances?"

This article was posted to Soc.Culture.Kurdish by the author.