Istanbul Mehmet Akif Ersoy is not exactly a journalist who would attack the Turkish government at any opportunity. But when he was just doing his job – describing what he saw – the popular TV presenter Habertürk came under fire.
Ersoy stood in front of the camera after the devastating earthquake in the worst-hit region of Hatay and explained live that some government aid had arrived late in some places. Even President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now admitted this and apologized for the initially sluggish aid. Despite this, users on social media insulted the journalist as a traitor.
He was verbally attacked massively, Ersoy then told the news portal Al-Monitor. “I reported what I saw, paying attention to the voice of my conscience,” said the journalist. “I’m neither one of those who say ‘the state was absent’ nor one of those who say ‘the state did its best’.”
But Ersoy had to experience what many of his colleagues are also reporting: after the earthquakes in early February and two months before the important elections for the country’s leadership, free reporting for the media in Turkey is becoming increasingly difficult. While critics of the government, victims and relatives in the hard-hit area in the south-east of the country accuse the government in Ankara of poor crisis management, it wants to portray the disaster as a pure natural disaster that people are powerless to face.
More and more newspapers and television stations are reporting that they are being intimidated or fined by regulators for making critical comments. “The experiences after the quake indicate which means of censorship Ankara could use in the run-up to the elections, which are due in June at the latest,” says Turkish journalist Fehim Tastekin.
State of emergency gives media supervision significant rights to intervene
The Erdogan government finds it convenient to have declared a state of emergency in the eleven provinces affected by the earthquake. This also gives Ankara the power to stop reporting or at least to intervene in it.
For example, two days after the disaster, the media regulator blocked the short message service Twitter – even though survivors in the rubble were using this platform at the same time to draw attention to themselves.
The Turkish social media platform Eksi Sözlük, on which users had posted critical comments, was later temporarily blocked. A recently introduced law that provides prison terms for the dissemination of “fake news” also helps here.
>> Read here: Kemal Kilicdaroglu wants to challenge President Erdogan.
Journalists see this as a call for self-censorship. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in his first address after the disaster that those trying to spread “fake news and distorted reporting” would be closely monitored. “We will address these individuals when the time comes,” he threatened.
Four journalists have already been arrested in the earthquake area. They were accused, among other things, of filming and interviewing people criticizing the government’s response to the earthquake in the earthquake area without government-issued press passes. The journalists were later released.
A number of media representatives also report threats and obstructions by the police. A journalist, who asked not to be named, explained that parts of his equipment had been destroyed during a check in the earthquake area. Another reporter, according to journalist Tastekin, claims he was threatened by an axe-wielding government supporter.
Government seeks sovereignty over the interpretation of the earthquake
Independent media are already having a hard time in Turkey. A strong state has taken root in the polarized society since President Erdogan took power. He becomes more and more active when it comes to controlling public opinion.
The administration in Ankara describes the series of earthquakes as the “disaster of the century”. That’s hardly an exaggeration given the scale. At the same time, critics see this as an attempt by the government to assume sovereignty over the interpretation of the catastrophe and to deny responsibility. According to Tastekin, media controlled by Ankara, such as the state broadcaster TRT or the state news agency, have been prescribed for weeks how they should report on the tragedy.
>> Also read here: Reconstruction in Turkey is becoming so expensive
In fact, in the first two weeks after the earthquake, many news channels mainly showed hours of live broadcasts on how rescuers in the earthquake area tried to rescue survivors from the rubble. Critical voices, on the other hand, were hardly allowed.
During a live broadcast, for example, a journalist pushed aside a man who had just walked into the camera image. “I want to speak!” he shouted, adding: “Six days after the earthquake, we still don’t have a tent.”
“Much of the media has adopted the term ‘disaster of the century’ to disguise government responsibility and induce the public to believe that the quakes would have overwhelmed any government,” Tastekin said. People complaining about the lack of search and rescue teams or relief workers were largely absent from their reporting.
Critical stations receive penalties
The few independent television stations are meanwhile being heaped with penalties for critical reporting by the broadcasting supervisory authority. The highly anti-government broadcaster Halk TV has been fined 5 percent of its monthly advertising revenue.
The station had previously broadcast critical comments from an opposition MP. In addition, Halk TV is banned from broadcasting the next five editions of the program in question.
The broadcaster was fined separately for another program criticizing the government’s response to the quakes. TV stations Tele1 and Fox were hit with similar fines and program bans.
Even in the national sport of football, criticism now seems undesirable. At several soccer games after the earthquake, fans chanted “government, resign!”. The club Fenerbahce Istanbul was subsequently punished for this: at the club’s next away game, no fans of the team were allowed into the stadium.
Erdogan also wants to be Turkey’s president after the elections.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
Observers see the upcoming important parliamentary and presidential elections as the main reason for this. The government has been tightening the reins again for a few weeks. Polls paint a mixed picture when it comes to Erdogan’s potential re-election.
Admittedly, the Turkish president has regained favor with the electorate after criticism of his weak crisis management, because he promises rapid reconstruction and the opposition is divided. Nevertheless, critical reporting is extremely inconvenient for him, especially in the hot phase of the election campaign that is now beginning.
Maybe his followers will notice that too. When TV presenter Ersoy wrote on Twitter about the cause of the earthquakes that Turks “had not learned how to build houses in this region even after 1000 years”, he received numerous critical comments.
A woman asked him if he wanted to use the phrase to rewrite Turkey’s national anthem – an allusion to the fact that Ersoy has exactly the same name as the anthem’s composer. Another Twitter user gleefully asked if Ersoy didn’t know that Anatolia had been inhabited by Turks for 7,000 years.
More: Why the Turkish opposition is failing itself