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FOR TURKISH JOURNALISTS, ARREST IS A REAL DANGER
ANCHORS: Peter Kenyon
National Public Radio
SHOW: Morning Edition 11:00 AM EST
January 26, 2012 Thursday
GUESTS: Yonca Sik, Yasemine Akbas, Joel Simon
RENEE MONTAGNE: In the wake of the Arab Spring, many of the emerging
democracies in North Africa are looking across the Mediterranean to
Turkey, in search of a model. Still, that model may be flawed. Some
analysts in the region question Turkey's human rights record, and
its dealings with the media.
Critics say the government is using Turkey's slow-moving and sometimes
opaque justice system to stifle dissent. Media advocates in Turkey are
frustrated both with the government and international media groups,
which in their view, understate the number of imprisoned journalists.
NPR's Peter Kenyon filed this report from Istanbul.
YONCA SIK: OK, now you will have original Istanbul breakfast.
PETER KENYON: Yonca Sik welcomes a visitor to her Istanbul apartment
on a recent morning, setting the breakfast table with cheese, homemade
jam, tomatoes and the ubiquitous Turkish simit - a sesame-crusted
cross between a bagel and a pretzel.
Also bustling around are Yonca's young daughter; an attention-seeking
Golden Retriever; and John, a lawyer trying to get her husband,
journalist Ahmet Sik, out of prison.
The arrest of Sik and longtime investigative journalist Nedim Sener
nearly a year ago provoked a large, public outcry. But since then,
detentions of journalists have continued apace.
Yonca Sik says her husband's spirits seemed to lift when he was finally
able to have his say in open court. That hearing also featured the
first public reading of the indictment against the journalists.
YONCA SIK: (Through translator) When you read the indictment, you
can't decide whether you should laugh or cry. It's just really, really
embarrassing. And when it was read aloud in court, it was revelatory -
it was a sort of epiphany because the whole world could see what the
allegations were, and how they were just sort of silly and ridiculous.
PETER KENYON: Prosecutors are taking the indictment quite seriously.
The state charges the journalist with aiding and abetting a terrorist
organization - an alleged behind-the-scenes power structure known
as Ergenekon.
Hundreds of people - military officers, academics and journalists -
have been arrested in various cases involving alleged conspiracies to
overthrow the government. In the case of these journalists, however,
most of the actual evidence of their collaboration consists of news
stories or books they worked on.
Many Turks believe the government was not prepared for the strong
public reaction to what critics call its campaign against unfriendly
journalists. Last week, there was another reminder of just how
unpopular this self-described reformist government's treatment of
the media has become.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHANTING AT PROTEST)
PETER KENYON: Five years after the murder of the last journalist to
be killed for doing his job, tens of thousands of Turks took to the
streets to remember the Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink, gunned
down by an ultranationalist teenager.
Many in the crowd condemned a recent court ruling that found no
official involvement in the murder. In the wake of that ruling,
virtually everyone - including one of the judges - expressed discontent
with the verdict.
Protester Yasemine Akbas scornfully dismissed the government's
assertion that the appeals court may yet get to the truth in the case.
YASEMINE AKBAS: I don't give a damn to what they say, actually. Their
purpose is not democracy, their purpose is not equilibrium; it's
not brotherhood, it's not freedom, it's not this or that. All their
concern is how to save their own (bleep) that's all.
PETER KENYON: The chorus of criticism includes the European Court of
Human Rights, which last year said Turkey has violated the Convention
on Human Rights.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also weighed in
though here, there's a twist in the tale. CPJ itself came under fire
from local groups after listing eight jailed Turkish journalists in
its latest global survey. The count by Turkish groups reaches almost
to three figures.
CPJ executive director Joel Simon says he was very disturbed to hear
that the government was using the CPJ tally to rebut criticism at
home. He says the sometimes-murky Turkish justice system makes it
hard to meet the clear evidence standards they use for their global
surveys but in any case, the government has nothing to be proud of.
JOEL SIMON: The reality is, eight journalists in jail puts you in
the company of countries like Syria, Ethiopia and Burma, before this
most recent round of releases. Now, Burma has far fewer journalists
in jail than Turkey. So Turkey is one of the world's worst jailers of
journalists. It's not, according to our research, on par with China
or Iran, but it's still one of the world's worst.
PETER KENYON: The government says it's encouraging reforms in the
drafting of a new constitution that will improve both the media climate
and the judicial system. But as one Turkish columnist wrote recently,
Turkey's bid to be recognized as a modern emocratic power inevitably
will be tainted as long as it arrests journalists for doing their job,
and then tries to portray them as terrorists.
ANCHORS: Peter Kenyon
National Public Radio
SHOW: Morning Edition 11:00 AM EST
January 26, 2012 Thursday
GUESTS: Yonca Sik, Yasemine Akbas, Joel Simon
RENEE MONTAGNE: In the wake of the Arab Spring, many of the emerging
democracies in North Africa are looking across the Mediterranean to
Turkey, in search of a model. Still, that model may be flawed. Some
analysts in the region question Turkey's human rights record, and
its dealings with the media.
Critics say the government is using Turkey's slow-moving and sometimes
opaque justice system to stifle dissent. Media advocates in Turkey are
frustrated both with the government and international media groups,
which in their view, understate the number of imprisoned journalists.
NPR's Peter Kenyon filed this report from Istanbul.
YONCA SIK: OK, now you will have original Istanbul breakfast.
PETER KENYON: Yonca Sik welcomes a visitor to her Istanbul apartment
on a recent morning, setting the breakfast table with cheese, homemade
jam, tomatoes and the ubiquitous Turkish simit - a sesame-crusted
cross between a bagel and a pretzel.
Also bustling around are Yonca's young daughter; an attention-seeking
Golden Retriever; and John, a lawyer trying to get her husband,
journalist Ahmet Sik, out of prison.
The arrest of Sik and longtime investigative journalist Nedim Sener
nearly a year ago provoked a large, public outcry. But since then,
detentions of journalists have continued apace.
Yonca Sik says her husband's spirits seemed to lift when he was finally
able to have his say in open court. That hearing also featured the
first public reading of the indictment against the journalists.
YONCA SIK: (Through translator) When you read the indictment, you
can't decide whether you should laugh or cry. It's just really, really
embarrassing. And when it was read aloud in court, it was revelatory -
it was a sort of epiphany because the whole world could see what the
allegations were, and how they were just sort of silly and ridiculous.
PETER KENYON: Prosecutors are taking the indictment quite seriously.
The state charges the journalist with aiding and abetting a terrorist
organization - an alleged behind-the-scenes power structure known
as Ergenekon.
Hundreds of people - military officers, academics and journalists -
have been arrested in various cases involving alleged conspiracies to
overthrow the government. In the case of these journalists, however,
most of the actual evidence of their collaboration consists of news
stories or books they worked on.
Many Turks believe the government was not prepared for the strong
public reaction to what critics call its campaign against unfriendly
journalists. Last week, there was another reminder of just how
unpopular this self-described reformist government's treatment of
the media has become.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHANTING AT PROTEST)
PETER KENYON: Five years after the murder of the last journalist to
be killed for doing his job, tens of thousands of Turks took to the
streets to remember the Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink, gunned
down by an ultranationalist teenager.
Many in the crowd condemned a recent court ruling that found no
official involvement in the murder. In the wake of that ruling,
virtually everyone - including one of the judges - expressed discontent
with the verdict.
Protester Yasemine Akbas scornfully dismissed the government's
assertion that the appeals court may yet get to the truth in the case.
YASEMINE AKBAS: I don't give a damn to what they say, actually. Their
purpose is not democracy, their purpose is not equilibrium; it's
not brotherhood, it's not freedom, it's not this or that. All their
concern is how to save their own (bleep) that's all.
PETER KENYON: The chorus of criticism includes the European Court of
Human Rights, which last year said Turkey has violated the Convention
on Human Rights.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also weighed in
though here, there's a twist in the tale. CPJ itself came under fire
from local groups after listing eight jailed Turkish journalists in
its latest global survey. The count by Turkish groups reaches almost
to three figures.
CPJ executive director Joel Simon says he was very disturbed to hear
that the government was using the CPJ tally to rebut criticism at
home. He says the sometimes-murky Turkish justice system makes it
hard to meet the clear evidence standards they use for their global
surveys but in any case, the government has nothing to be proud of.
JOEL SIMON: The reality is, eight journalists in jail puts you in
the company of countries like Syria, Ethiopia and Burma, before this
most recent round of releases. Now, Burma has far fewer journalists
in jail than Turkey. So Turkey is one of the world's worst jailers of
journalists. It's not, according to our research, on par with China
or Iran, but it's still one of the world's worst.
PETER KENYON: The government says it's encouraging reforms in the
drafting of a new constitution that will improve both the media climate
and the judicial system. But as one Turkish columnist wrote recently,
Turkey's bid to be recognized as a modern emocratic power inevitably
will be tainted as long as it arrests journalists for doing their job,
and then tries to portray them as terrorists.