5 Yorumsuz – 5 Without Comment – 2015-03-16

1 – Hürriyet Daily News and Today’s Zaman

Turkey’s media watchdog will be given the authority to fine TV channels that violate election broadcast limitations, according to a new omnibus bill presented to parliament, de-authorizing the High Election Board (YSK). The media watchdog, the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK), will take over the authority to issue warnings and fines to broadcasters for election violations, instead of the YSK, which currently holds the authority, if the bill is passed by parliament. Opposition parties have reacted against the bill, claiming that it is a move to protect pro-government broadcasters.

2 – Today’s Zaman and others – follow further developments in the Kabataş Gezi Park story, as pro-Government paper Sabah publishes a mock image alongside claims (also in English) that the lack of evidence in the case is actually evidence, and that all of the alleged crimes took place in a 52-second gap in security footage. Satirical cartoon magazine Gırgır includes a cover showing Erdoğan directing a shoot of the events. From Today’s Zaman:

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the pro-government media have revived discredited claims that a woman wearing a headscarf was attacked by a group of Gezi Park protesters, as government mouthpiece the Sabah daily published an illustration on Wednesday linked to debunked claims, even though police have confirmed that the video footage showing the incident does not exist. There were claims that a physical assault was sustained by the woman, whose family has close ties to Erdoğan, during the nationwide anti-government Gezi Park protests in 2013 in front of Istanbul’s Kabataş docks, where nearly 100 men allegedly harassed the woman and her baby. These allegations gave rise to the withdrawal of support by certain segments of society from the Gezi protests.

3 – BGN News and Today’s Zaman report on a piece in Taraf related to a major shift in government surveillance – from BGN:

A new Big Brother-esque surveillance center in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s TRY 1.4 billion (USD 540 million) presidential palace has been completed. The center will allow the president to monitor all 77 million citizens at all times, with its 143 different screens providing access to all MOBESE (law enforcement CCTV) cameras in all 81 municipalities, all images taken by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as well as all security camera footage. Able to directly receive information from the systems belonging to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), the National Intelligence Agency (MIT), the police and the gendarmerie, the center will also be able to project a target’s personal details and information instantaneously.

4 – Hürriyet Daily News

Turkish police on March 13 detained three people accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other top officials on Twitter, after raiding their homes. The raids were the latest in a string of actions against critics of Erdoğan on Twitter, as activists express growing alarm over the limits on freedom of expression in Turkey.

5 – Istanbul Film Festival, sponsored by the The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), released its program for this year’s festival, to run from April 4th to 19th.

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5 Yorumsuz – 5 Without Comment – 2015-03-09

1 – Bianet – has released a summary report on the state of journalism in Turkey over the last three years.

The polarization of media and intolerance to different opinions in Turkey soared in the year of 2014 with the incidents of Local Elections on March 30, Presidential Elections on August 10, the resolution process with Kurds and operations against Fethullah Gülen Movement. What the polarizations meant was to choosing between self-censorship or layoffs for journalists, and violation to right to information for readers. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government prioritized in 2014 its “security-oriented” policies to state of law and basic rights and freedoms despite all criticism.

2 – Today’s Zaman, Radikal, and Zaytung (a satirical news site) – follow the ongoing interest in the Kabataş attack story from Gezi Park

Amid growing debate regarding a fabricated incident of harassment against a woman with a headscarf in Istanbul’s Kabataş neighborhood that apparently never took place, 14 columnists from five pro-government newspapers ran the same headline for their Thursday columns to back the government’s narrative without including any evidence but instead recounting the history of discrimination against the headscarf. During the Gezi Park protests that erupted during the summer of 2013, pro-government journalists reported that a headscarved woman named Zehra Develioğlu was attacked by Gezi protesters on a street in Kabataş on June 1. Although a large part of society was galvanized to turn against the Gezi protesters due to the incident — especially after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, said dozens of half-naked men had attacked the young woman and even urinated on her — footage from nearby security cameras discovered months later showed no evidence that such an attack had even taken place.

3 – Evrensel – notes that On the 4th of March, HDP co-president Selahattin Demirtaş was scheduled to appear on the Cüneyt Özdemir’s 5N1K program on Kanal D at 11:15pm, but the show was rescheduled at the last minute until 1:00am and didn’t actually air until 1:45am. Critics took to Twitter to suggest this was due to the AKP government’s intervention.

4 – Hürriyet Daily News and AlJazeera Turk

A court has ordered President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to pay 10,000 Turkish Liras to the artist responsible for a sculpture in the northeastern province of Kars, which he had demanded the removal of and described as a “freak.” During a Jan. 8, 2011 visit to Kars, then Prime Minister Erdoğan slammed the city’s new 35-meter-tall “Monument to Humanity,” created by sculptor Mehmet Aksoy. An Istanbul court ruled on March 3 for Erdoğan to pay 10,000 liras in moral indemnities to Aksoy, partially accepting the 100,000 liras case Aksoy had filed against Erdoğan.

5 – Medyafaresi – reports that the Turkish dizi (TV series) Son (meaning “the end”), by production firm Ay Yapım, will become the first drama format from Turkey adapted for US television when shooting starts on 27 March in Chicago. The US version of the series will be called Runner.

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5 Yorumsuz – 5 Without Comment – 2015-03-02

1 – Hürriyet Daily News (and Radikal)

Weeks after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “16 Turkish warriors” hit international headlines, several candidates have launched Ottoman-themed campaigns to be nominated for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

2 – Today’s Zaman

US-based watchdog Freedom House has criticized Turkey’s controversial security package, which grants extensive powers to police officers and provincial governors, saying that the passing of the bill in Parliament is a move to undermine democracy in Turkey. Freedom House, which describes itself as “an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world,” responded to the passage of the first 10 articles, issuing a statement late Monday. The director of Freedom House’s Eurasia programs, Susan Corke, said, “It is no exaggeration to say that the future of Turkish democracy hangs in the balance with this law.”

3 – Hürriyet Daily News

Model and former Miss Turkey Merve Büyüksaraç is facing up to two years in prison for social media posts that prosecutors claim “insult” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The indictment has been completed as a part of an investigation into Büyüksaraç’s post, in which the prosecutor Umut Tepe demanded that she be sentenced to one to two years in prison. The Criminal Court of First Instance in Istanbul will now decide whether to initiate proceedings. Büyüksaraç, an industrial designer and writer who was crowned Miss Turkey in 2006, was briefly detained and questioned on Jan. 14 for sharing a satirical poem on her Instagram account.

4 – Today’s Zaman

Auditors from the Finance Ministry carried out a raid at the Gezici Research Company’s office in Istanbul following a poll the company released showing votes for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) decreasing below 40 percent. According to the Cihan news agency, auditors went to the Gezici office in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district to examine the company’s tax documents on Tuesday morning. The auditors checked up on details regarding the company’s address, number of employees and the administrative structure of the company, then left the office after taking notes.

5 – Gerçek Gündem – Fidel Okan, who once served as lawyer for Star Gazetesi journalist Elif Çakır, gives his version of how the Kabataş story became so exaggerated. Cakır has faced renewed criticism for promoting a story during the Gezi Park protests of 2013 that Zehra Develioğlu, who wears a headscarf, was attacked by a group of protestors. Then Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdoğan, picked up on the story and repeated it frequently to demonize the protestors, but there is little evidence that the event actually took place. According to Okan, some protestors exchanged words with the woman and she was upset by this, as well as by the fact that her husband was late to pick her up. She exaggerated her account when he finally arrived to get her and he, in turn, exaggerated it when recounting it to his father, who happened to be an AKP-affiliated leader of a local municipality. This official, in turn, exaggerated the story once again and it was increasingly exaggerated as it moved up the AKP chain of command, to the point that it became a group of 70, half-naked, leather-clad assailants who overturned a baby stroller and urinated on the woman. Okan says that Erdoğan probably believed the story the whole time.

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5 Yorumsuz – 5 (or 6) without comment – 2015-02-23

1 – Guardian

Turkey has staged its first open military operation in Syria, dispatching hundreds of ground troops, tanks, aircraft and drones to extract 38 soldiers guarding a historical Ottoman tomb besieged by Islamic State (Isis) militants. In the first such incursion into Syria since the start of the civil war nearly four years ago, Ankara launched the operation – dubbed “Shah Euphrates” – to move the remains of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman empire. The operation was conducted through Kobani, the Kurdish-controlled enclave south of the Turkish-Syrian border that was the scene of a recent victory over Isis by the US-led military coalition.

2 – Hürriyet Daily News

A high school student in Turkey was sentenced to 12 months in prison on Feb. 15 for insulting then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The incident took place as the student, identified only by the initials U.H.C., attended a demonstration in Attalos Square in the southern province of Antalya, in protest at a case involving two other high school students who had been charged after protesting against Erdoğan.

3 – Radikal – Notes that the new film Kod Adi KOZ, which deals with Gezi Park and the 17 December corruption investigations, did poorly in its first few days. Producers were hoping it would break Recep Ivedik 4‘s box office record, but it sold only 127,743 seats during its first three days, meaning it would take a small miracle to reach that goal at this point.

4 – Hürriyet Daily News

A ruling party lawmaker has blamed popular Turkish soap operas for the increase in the number of rape cases in the country, arguing that such series were ruining the nature of the Turkish family structure. “You shoot series and you know no bounds in the relationship between the brother’s wife and uncle. You set no limits, and then you complain about the increase in rape. What were you expecting?  Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind,” İsmet Uçma, a deputy from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and a member of parliament’s commission investigating the reasons for violence against women, said Feb. 18 during a panel meeting.

5 – Today’s Zaman

The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has levied a nearly TL 1 million penalty on the Samanyolu Broadcasting Group in what Samanyolu executives consider yet another attempt to silence media outlets close to Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. “As if there were no other channels, RTÜK is exclusively following our channels and attempting to silence them with astronomic penalties,” said Samanyolu Haber TV Editor-in- Chief Metin Yıkar, commenting on the fine. “RTÜK should be the institution that monitors and regulates this country’s television networks, but it has completely abandoned this role and assumed the position of a political actor,” added Yıkar.

6 – Hürriyet Daily News – Turkish Parliament refuses to probe issues it claims to be very concerned about. The AKP majority voted against suggestions from HDP lawmakers that probes be conducted into (1) the so-called parallel state run by Fethullah Gülen, and (2) ISIL activities in Turkey.

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