So, Erdogan oppresses the media and persecutes journalists, does he?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised the Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision to release journalists Can Dundar and Erdem Gul. “I do not respect this decision,” he said, “and am not obliged to enforce it.” This has provoked many reactions from supporters and opponents alike.

The situation reflects the political polarisation witnessed in Turkey following the successive victories of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in every election it has participated in since 2002, including that held last November. A number of political parties and other opposition forces are losing hope about influencing the ruling party through the ballot box, as they have nothing left up their sleeves other than the old methods of dirty dealing, smears and resorting to external allies.

The relationship between politics and media in Turkey

Former Prime Minister and head of the Islamic Movement in Turkey, the late Necmettin Erbakan, was quoted as saying, “We had tried to include a general in our ranks, but now we are trying to attract a journalist.” Erbakan’s words hint at the importance of the “fourth estate”, which has become the top estate given events in the country, but they also refer to the suffering of the politicians who entered politics by means other than those set out by the “founding government” or “deep state”, such as himself, Adnan Menderes and Erdogan. So what is the nature of the relationship between the media and politics in Turkey?

The media played an effective and influential role in opposition during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. However, that role faded slowly as the Republican People’s Party tightened its grip first on the state institutions followed by all aspects of political life, including the media. Despite this, the reality of the media started to change somewhat in coordination with the transformation towards political pluralism in the 1950s. The situation escalated, dropped, advanced and declined based on the democratic path, which was subject to successive coups at an average of one per decade. The media became one of the most important fortresses of the “founding government” or “deep state”. It assumed a top position in confronting efforts to move towards democracy and a civilian state, instead of being a prime motivator behind such a transition, which is the case in most developed countries.

Hence, it became a familiar sight to see renowned politicians calling on the military to interfere directly in order to resolve political disputes. This became increasingly clear in the harmonious performance between the Supreme Constitutional Court and the deep state media in the case of releasing Dundar and Gul, as the court exceeded its constitutional privileges and authority and released them in a clear challenge to the government and president. It is ironic that Erdogan and the AKP formulated the clause that allows individuals the right to file a direct complaint to the constitutional court on which the court based its controversial ruling.

The relationship between Erdogan and the media

It seems that Erdogan has not forgotten the image of Aydin Dougan, the largest media tycoon in Turkey, welcoming his predecessor as Prime Minister, Mesut Yilmaz, in his pyjamas. Nor has he forgotten the suffering of President Turgut Ozal at the hands of the media, despite the fact that he was a liberal conservative; nor the low methods used by the media against his immediate predecessor, Erbakan. He has, therefore, adopted the strategy of creating balance in the media, allowing for the growth of a strong professional sector that addresses secularists and liberals as well as conservatives and Islamists. In the past few years the media has been able to achieve such a balance and overcome the absolute control and domination of the secular opposition. The latter has been defending its position fiercely but in vain; it no longer has the monopoly it has had in the past.

However, I must point out that Erdogan grew up in a conservative Islamic environment in which criticism is regarded as a form of hostility; and he is from the Black Sea area, where people are known for their short tempers. This has caused him a lot of trouble in his political life, as his weakness is that he is susceptible to provocation. His opponents have taken advantage of this and have often succeeded in dragging him into secondary battles that exhaust his time and effort, and damage his charismatic image in the eyes of the masses.

Something else needs to be mentioned, which is the link between the media organisations and the world of money and big business, especially during the coalition governments in the 1990s. At that time, almost every holding company was affiliated with a media organisation and had a newly-retired army general on its board. This meant that the economy was monopolised and revolved around a few large companies which dominated the state’s capabilities and resources; the treasury was left empty by their looting. The Turkish economy paid a high price — literally; more than $50 billion — pushing the country to the verge of bankruptcy and forcing its citizens to look for any possible alternative.

This was the scenario which saw the AKP’s sweep of the political arena, winning by a landslide in the first elections in which it took part, despite the fact that it was a newly-formed party. It eliminated the political figures and leaders who led the country, including Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller, making them a distant memory in a very short time.

Why were Dundar and Gul imprisoned?

Turkish officials have been keen to deny all of the allegations that Erdogan has supplied some Syrian opposition force with arms. However, an incident on 19 December 2014 put them in a difficult position, after trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Syria were found near the city of Adana also carrying light and medium calibre weapons.

The vehicles were searched despite the fact that Turkish intelligence agents accompanying them showed documentation proving their mission and insisted that the contents of the trucks were state secrets and could not be searched. A gendarmerie officer and the general prosecutor insisted on the search going ahead — which was beyond the scope of their authority — and the search was conducted in the presence of some journalists, although they were cleared from the scene later by the police.

The search of the trucks was preceded by another which targeted four ministers and the director-general of Khalq Bank; $3 million was found at his home. This was followed by a bogus video tape of Erdogan asking his son Bilal to hide money and other things before it was discovered that Fethallah Gulen’s movement — the so-called “parallel state” — had orchestrated the two operations through its influence in the army, police and judiciary, in full coordination with the media. President Erdogan, along with the Justice and Development Party, viewed these actions as an obvious coup attempt, and so tracked those behind them.

Given the fact that the issue is associated with state secrets and that more than just the country’s security was involved, the investigating judge issued a ruling prohibiting the publication of anything related to the case. However, Cumhuriyet newspaper published linked documents on 29 May 2015, challenging the court’s decision and citing this as part of the freedom of the press. Two days later, Erdogan responded by refuting the claims and saying that the weapons were sent to the Turkmen in Latakiya in Syria. He also responded to the other claims and accusations, but Cumhuriyet continued to publish articles rejecting the president’s explanations. It then published pictures of the truck incident and the documents associated with it, in a direct challenge to the authority of the court. That is when the attorney general ordered the arrest, on 27 November last year, of the newspaper’s editor in chief, Can Dundar, and the head of its office in Ankara, Erdem Gul; they were held on charges of exposing state secrets and spying for foreign parties. They stayed on remand in prison until the Constitutional Court decided to order their release on 26 February, as noted above.

It is clear that the journalists were not arrested because of their work per se, but because what they published was a challenge to a legal ruling which threatened state security. Other journalists, it should be noted, have been imprisoned after it was proven that they were involved in criminal and terrorist acts, such as providing logistical support to the outlawed PKK or the Daesh terrorist group.

Nevertheless, some Western, Russian and Iranian media, along with regional states and other forces, have created a stereotype image of the Turkish government — and its president in particular — as being oppressive towards journalists and their profession. This is intended to put pressure on Turkey to disengage from regional issues, such as the Syrian conflict, Iraq and so on.

Spending only one day reading Turkish newspapers and watching the TV news is enough to demonstrate that freedom of the press in Turkey is no more restricted than in any other developed democratic country. It also shows, however, that the president’s many — usually valid — complaints against journalists and politicians do not serve the interests of democracy and peace in Turkey. This harms the country’s image and helps those who want to fish around in troubled waters for ways to bring the ruling party and government down.

Translated from Alkhaleejonline.net, 12 April, 2016.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.