Static with journalists undercuts Turkish president’s image efforts
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to counter his image as an authoritarian ruler during a speech Thursday, but his security team issued a different message as they sought to intimidate and oust journalists at the venue.
As Erdogan pledged anew to fight terrorism and help Syrian refugees while boasting of his own popularity with voters, the Turkish security detail confronted journalists and protesters at the Brookings Institution.
“You cannot find any country that pursues high standards and human rights and democracy like Turkey, and we want to be treated fairly,” Erdogan said.
Outside, a Turkish security official grabbed a banner that looked like a stuffed tiger from raucous protesters, while other security officials confronted a U.S. journalist and a Turkish journalist in separate incidents.
Inside Brookings, U.S. security officials and a Secret Service agent protected a Turkish journalist from being evicted by Turkish security personnel.
The reporter, Adem Arslan, said he was ejected from the building, then brought back in by Brookings staff who insisted he was their guest. Arslan works for Ozgur Dusunce (“Free Thought”) Daily, which is owned by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish religious leader and onetime political ally of Erdogan’s whom the Turkish president accuses of trying to overthrow his government.
Arslan said two men with Erdogan’s team told him in Turkish, “You’re not allowed to be in here, you’re a traitor.” Once he was back in the building, he said, they threatened to kill him when he went out.
Erdogan, asked about his government’s arrests of journalists and seizure of papers, said false information has been disseminated in the West by his country’s enemies. “Those who are incarcerated journalists in Turkey have been subject to litigation, and their verdicts are pending,” Erdogan said. “These people have already been convicted of engaging in terrorism.”
As Erdogan spoke in the USA, an explosion caused by a bomb-laden car in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir killed at least seven police officers.