mercredi 24 juillet 2013

Pression sur les médias / Pressure on the Media

Turquie : Pression sur les médias / Pressure on the Media
 
24 July Anti-Censorship Day: 64 journalists under arrest in Turkey

http://www.info-turk.be/419.htm#64

There are 64 journalists under arrest and another 123 are facing trial on charges of terrorism, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has announced, with the party’s leader underlining that Turkey ranks 154th out of 179 countries in media freedom.
CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu released the outcome of the party’s research into all journalists that have been facing prosecution, presenting the “Report on Imprisoned Journalists” today at a press conference at the party’s headquarters.


Kılıçdaroğlu also referred to the Turkey Journalists’ Labor Union’s (TGS) July 22 assessment that 59 journalists had been removed from post for their news reports on the Gezi Park unrest.


“We are experiencing a process in which the government and the police audits together, [in which] the media bosses are under the rule of political authority and publish the news that the political authority accepts,” he said, adding that those in power, as well as media bosses, were also instituting censorship or driving journalists to engage in self-censorship. “We have gone 105 years back in time.”


Even during the aftermath of the Sept. 12, 1980, coup, only 31 journalists were arrested, Kılıçdaroğlu said, calling the government’s current attitude on the matter a “police state mentality.”


“Mr. Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] has turned the country into a half-open penitentiary and made it impossible to live for journalists,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, while noting the approach of Journalism Day, which is marked on July 24 in Turkey.


“Journalism is a public duty. Only in a country in which a journalist can work freely can we talk about democracy,” he said. “I call out to media bosses: Leave the kitchen of the newspaper alone, when you apply censorship on them, when you lay them off from work, someday we will bring you to account,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.


The CHP took up the matter following a joint press conference between Erdoğan and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February in which the former responded to a German correspondent’s question about arrested journalists by saying: “The number of arrested journalists is not more than the number of fingers on one’s hand. Those journalists were not arrested for their journalism.”


CHP deputies Veli Ağbaba, Özgür Özel and Nurettin Demir, who conducted the survey, also attended today’s press conference. (hurriyetdailynews.com, July 23, 2013)

“At Least 27 Authors, Poets, Translators, Publishers in Prison”

Turkish Publishers Association released its report “Freedom to Publish Turkey” including right violations between June 2012 and 2013. “At least 27 authors, poets, translators, publishers are imprisoned in Turkey,” the report cited. 

The report included the following chapters: “Lawsuits and Investigations against Books, Books Pulled Off the Shelf”, “Other Court Cases Against Writers”, “Lawsuits Against Comics”, “Censorship, Bans and Investigations Regarding Publications”, “Books as Crime Evidence”,  “Pressures on Press”, “Pressures on Internet Publishing”,  “Amendments to Law”,  “European Court of Human Rights Rulings" and “Reports of International Organizations”. 

The report listed some of the limitations on freedom to publish in Turkey as follows:

* 3 cartoonists faced prosecutions

* 15 books were banned by prosecutors

* At least 2 translators 11 publishers and 17 authors were ordered to stand trial

* Court verdicts on 17 books were postponed due to Turkey’s 3rd Judicial Package reforms.

* 1 defendant was acquitted concerning book trial.

* 1 prosecutor abandoned charges on a book trial.

* 2 publishers received penalties

* 5 institutions or publications were censured. Education Ministry issued censorship on 7 poems. Investigations were launched on educators who were using the following publications as textbooks: Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) , My Sweet Orange Tree (Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos), Zıkkımın Kökü (Muzaffer İzgü), Ömer'in Çocukluğu and Çılgın Babam (Muallim Naci), Çatalhöyük Öyküleri-1 and Dünyamızın İlk Şafağı (Bilgin Adalı), Semerkand (Amin Maalof) and Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx). 

According to the report, books have been used as crime evidence in various prosecutions in Turkey.  It also included the cases of journalists who faced prosecution due to their journalism activities, concluding that several journalists were left unemployed during the process. 

The report also referred to Google’s Transparency Report which cited that Turkey made 87 applications to block 8,751 content material on the web. Turkish officials and police authorities , on the other hand, submitted 70 applications for the removal of 1,287 content material on the web. 

The report also reminded that some sentence were made available for probation within Turkey’s 3rd Judicial Package reforms, suspending all ban and seize orders on published materials dating until 5 January 2013. However, the report continued, some of publication bans on certain books returned in the meanwhile. (BIA, July 23, 2013)

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