Shameful Examples Emerge Of Press Censorship in Turkey
A Turkish newspaper’s censorship of its own ombudsman rings alarm bells over the issue of press freedom in Turkey.
Each time a political crisis embarrasses Turkey’s government, the noose around the freedom of the Turkish press gets a bit tighter.
In February, the daily Milliyet faced Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s wrath when it published the minutes of a meeting between three parliament members and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan on the prison island of Imrali, held as part of Ankara’s Kurdish peace drive.
Milliyet initially defended its publication of the minutes as an act of journalism. “Down with your journalism,” Erdogan responded, raising his criticism to a bullying tone. As a result, Milliyet, one of Turkey’s oldest newspapers, censored an article by its chief columnist Hasan Cemal, one of Turkey’s most popular and respected journalists, which defended the newspaper’s stance in the row. Cemal eventually quit and began writing for T24, an Internet news site published by a handful of leftist and liberal intellectuals.
The protests that erupted on May 31 over the cutting down of trees at İstanbul’s Gezi Park marked another turning point for press freedom in Turkey.
