Turkey’s Democratic Doublespeak
With Turkey’s ruling Islamists advocating secular democratic freedoms as the antidote to disgruntled constituents across the Middle East, critics question whether the Justice and Development party (AKP) is truly committed to the freedoms they preach. The basis for such doubts, the critics say, is a trend of diminishing press freedoms and an upsurge in state sanctioned religious doctrine. An estimated 100 journalists are behind bars in Turkey, many jailed for months without charge, making the moderate-Muslim country one of the leading foes of dissent worldwide. Meanwhile, the 2012 budget for the country’s Diyanet, or ministry of religious affairs, has been boosted 22.4 per cent to cultivate Sunni Islam.
Turkey has fallen ten places in the annual press freedoms index of Reporters Without Borders, which says the government must work quickly to reverse this trend or risk damaging its democratic gains: “Press freedoms will not improve as long as minority rights such as the Kurdish issue, Alevis’ religious rights and other minority rights remain a source of conflict,” says Erol Onderoglu from the media-monitoring body, noting an estimated 5,000 cases are currently pending against journalists in Turkey.
While Turkey’s image has been tarnished by such reports, the government emphatically denies any problem. In January, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that arrested journalists are not behind bars because of journalism but for crimes of sexual harassment or terrorism. At a party speech two weeks later, he set out his vision for Turkey’s future: “We will raise a conservative and democratic generation that embraces the values and historical principles of its nation.”
The Diyanet plans to hire 7,000 imams and install 2,000 more muezzins. Internet sites on Darwin’s theory of evolution can now be blocked by parents under the “child profile” Internet filtering system implemented by the Council of Information Technology and Communications last August.
