Journos feel the wrath of Turkey
FAILED COUP: PRESIDENT CRACKS DOWN ON MEDIA
A total of 108 newsmen arrested, 130 media houses shut down.
South Africa had its Black Wednesday when the apartheid authorities cracked down on critical media in the late ’70s – but that all pales into insignificance, compared to what is happening in Turkey now.
Every journalist who is critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime is regarded as a terrorist who deserves to be jailed. A week after the failed July 15 coup attempt, a total 108 journalists – including publishers, editors, reporters, photographers and even newspaper designers – were rounded up and locked up by the Turkish police.
The journalists were jailed on suspicion of being involved in terrorism and espionage and having links with US-based Fethullah Gülen, who heads the Gülen movement, an Islamic transnational religious and social grouping.
Turkey is in talks with the United States to extradite Gülen.
The crackdown saw 130 media houses being shut down, including offices of newspapers and television stations – and even regional media establishments did not escape the action.
On July 20 alone, 12 newspapers were shut down and warrants of arrests issued against 42 critical journalists.
In an exclusive interview with Saturday Citizen in Johannesburg yesterday, Abdullah Bozkurt, Ankara bureau chief for independent Today’s Zaman newspaper, said what is happening in his country is unprecedented by any measure.
The journalist said even during the 1980 coup attempt, no massive crackdowns on journalists of the scale under Erdogan took place.
Bozkurt, who is on a self-imposed exile in Europe, escaped a day after the warrants were issued against newsmen, when authorities targeted anyone known to be reporting critically about government corruption and the failed coup.
“We were targets because we reported about investigations into massive corruption involving Erdogan, his family members and business associates and illegal shipment of arms to rebels in Syria,” said Bozkurt.
“Most of those on the list exposed the corruption and reported about army rebels and radical groups in Syria, such as the Islamic State that the Erdogan government supports with arms.”
Things came to a head for the critical media when they wrote about a judicial inquiry. Officials, assisted by police, discovered a truckload of arms that were secretly being smuggled to the rebels in December 2015.
Despite the fact that the Turkish law prohibits any illegal funding of rebel groups or a shipping of weapons, this was one of about 2 000 clandestine shipments by Erdogan.
“Journalists are charged on false charges and put in jail by Erdogan,” Bozkurt said.
“Besides the 108 in jail, many more are facing arrest and are at large in Turkey, while some, like me, have fled the country.”
Of the 199 journalists reported by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists to be under arrest worldwide, 52% are by the Turkish authorities.
Bozkurt is in South Africa as a guest of FXI-Freedom of Expression Institute and the Turquoise Harmony Institute.
“Yeah baby, I can’t stand to lose you/See, you’re in too deep/And no, nowhere to hide.”
Police headed to Brown’s palatial Los Angeles home early on Tuesday after Curran, the winner of the Miss California Regional contest, said that the singer pointed a gun at her.
Brown, 27, kept officers waiting for hours as he demanded they produce a warrant and denounced police brutality in a series of expletive-filled Instagram videos.
Curran said that she had partied previously with Brown and that he grew angry after she admired a piece of jewellery.
Brown on Thursday returned to social media by posting a link on Twitter to one of his recent songs, Grass Ain’t Greener, whose lyrics could also be seen as pertinent.
The song speaks of a woman “drinking liquor when we celebrating while calculating all my funds”, and discovering her true nature after they split.
The singer is free on $250 000 (R3.5 million) bail. He is due to appear in court on September 20 to hear whether he will face charges.
Brown has been well known in recent years for violent incidents. He pleaded guilty in 2009 to beating up pop star Rihanna, ahead of the Grammy Awards. – AFP