From a Fanack article earlier this year:
In December 2014, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, rejecting foreign criticism of the constraints placed on the media, claimed that Turkey has “the world’s freest press”. Two years earlier, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) declared Turkey the world’s worst jailer of journalists, ahead of Iran and China, with 49 reporters in prison. Turkey remained at the top of the list of worst offenders in 2013, but by 1 December 2014, many detainees had been released and Turkey had dropped to tenth place on the CPJ list, with seven journalists behind bars.
While fewer journalists are languishing in Turkish prisons, this does not signal a more tolerant attitude toward the media. Rather, it suggests that the authorities are resorting to different means, often more pervasive and subtle, to control the media. Since becoming Turkey’s first popularly elected head of state in August 2014, Erdoğan has filed 220 court cases for alleged insults, many directed at journalists who expressed their views on Twitter or re-tweeted other people’s comments. In March 2015, two cartoonists were given an 11-month sentence, later commuted to a fine, for insulting the president. Anadolu Ajansi, Turkey’s state news agency, recently followed his example, filing insult charges against 58 people, including prominent members of the media, who had criticized the agency.
Judicial investigations, even if they do not result in prison sentences, are widely used to harass and intimidate outspoken members of the press. They also send a powerful warning to their colleagues, encouraging them to exercise self-censorship.
Then of course there's straightforward thuggery. From today's Sunday Times (£):
Turkey's leading political broadcaster was arriving home early on Thursday after recording his show when a black Honda smashed into his car on an Istanbul side street.
Four burly men stormed out of the vehicle, held down a bodyguard and inflicted a savage beating on 48-year-old Ahmet Hakan.
Hakan, one of the most vocal critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was taken to hospital for emergency surgery after suffering a broken nose and fractured ribs.
Surveillance footage showed that the Honda had followed Hakan from the studio. Three of the four attackers proved to be members of Erdogan’s conservative AKP party. “We know now: if they went after Ahmet, they can go after any of us,” said Barcin Yinanc, Hakan’s fellow columnist at the leading opposition newspaper Hurriyet. “From now on, all critical journalists will fear for their safety.”
Not that such indiscretions bother an EU desperate to make a deal:
The increasingly authoritarian Turkish leader stands accused not just of curbs on the press but also of ramping up a military campaign against Kurdish insurgents in the southeast of the country. Yet tomorrow Erdogan will be given the red-carpet treatment in Brussels from an EU desperate for his help in stemming the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe, many of whom pass through Turkey.
His hosts, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, and Donald Tusk, who heads the European Council, hope to seal a deal to stop Syrians and other refugees from reaching the continent in exchange for substantial funds and political concessions.
Turkish government sources believe Erdogan, initially hailed as a reformer when he came to power as prime minister in 2003, holds a whip hand in the talks.
His officials are demanding not only a fast-tracked decision to allow visa-free travel for 75m Turks and billions in funding, but also unfreezing of his country’s negotiations to join the EU.
An additional demand is said to be the resumption of energy trade talks that have been vetoed by Cyprus, part of which has been under Turkish military occupation since 1974.
With Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom keen to channel much of its supply to southern Europe via Turkey, the move would transform the country into an energy hub for EU states....
Yet Juncker believes he has “full backing” from Britain, France and Germany to host Erdogan.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said: “The protection of the external borders between Greece and Turkey will not be possible if we don’t win Turkey as a partner.”
Europe’s reliance on Erdogan’s help has been intensified by signs that the initial enthusiasm with which migrants were greeted in Germany and several other countries is giving way to misgivings and leading to gains for far-right groups.
Next Sunday Austria’s Freedom party hopes to seize control of Vienna from the Social Democrats, who have governed the city for more than two decades. Populists are also making gains in Holland, Sweden and France.
A senior EU diplomat said leaders had no illusions about the “balancing act” they had to perform in their dealings with the Turkish leader.
The source said: “This is the worst time to strike any deals with Erdogan — but we are acutely aware that he controls the influx of millions of people into Europe.”
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