In August an editor from Kazakhstan was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for “divulging state secrets” in an article which dealt with the relationship between the state security service KNB and a local distillery owner. Therefore the European Union has issued a declaration which states that journalists should be free to report on all issues of interest to the public, including commentary on how the state is run. All member states have signed as well as candidate countries Croatia and Macedonia, potential future members Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro together with Island and Norway. The only country which has not signed is Turkey.
Turkey has similarly refused to sign a similar statement, accusing Uzbekistan of trying to silence the media through intimidation and criminal proceedings. But when you look at the way Turkey has handled the media since the AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in 2002, this is no surprise. Especially after the government’s latest attempt to silence a critical press.
As former EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn emphasized to Turkey shortly after the start of accession talks in October 2005: “pluralism and free speech are basic values which cannot be compromised”. However, the message doesn’t seem to have got through to the Turkish government.
Social engineering
Since the AKP formed a government, the party has embarked on what Riza Türmen, former judge at the European Court of Human Rights, has called “social engineering” and “a radical transformation of society” from Western-oriented and secular to Islamic and conservative.
The means to achieve this goal has been through political and economic power, and the former has been the prerequisite for the latter. Because of the Turkish electoral system the AKP gained almost two thirds of the seats in parliament in 2002 with only 34 percent of the votes, and five years later the party gained 47 percent of the votes but only 341 ouf the parliament’s 550 seats. The AKP commands strong local support but even so won only 39 percent of the votes in the local elections this year.
The party’s victory in 2007 made it possible for the AKP to elect their own president – Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül – in spite of opposition from the military. But irrespective of the fact that the former president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist, blocked much of the AKP’s legislation, the government has succeeded in achieving most of its aims.
In 2003 the AKP amended the Public Procurement Law, which made it possible to exclude energy, water, transportation and telecommunications related contracts from the scope of the law, and last year a further amendment has made the awarding of public contracts even more opaque. Two years ago Hüseyin Tugcu, an AKP deputy and one of the party’s founders, stated that people who are given contracts or work by the government must have covered families i.e. where the women wear headscarves.
According to a report published last December by the Open Society Institute and Bosphorus University, “Being Different in Turkey”, whose who are not religious or secularists feel under pressure to conform to the social norms promoted by the AKP to keep their jobs and protect their businesses. For example, the membership of Memur-Sen, an Islamic union for civil servants, rose from 42,000 in 2002 to 315,000 in 2008, while the membership of other unions remained stable.
Imam-hatip schools
One aspect of this creeping Islamization of Turkey is that almost all leading positions inside state administration have been filled with government supporters, a number of whom – like Prime Minister Erdogan – have studied at imam-hatip schools (IHL), religious high schools. They are officially designated as vocational schools and for that reason IHL graduates have not been allowed to enter university on equal terms with graduates from state high schools. Now this barrier has been removed, so they have access to all the faculties.
About 13,000 graduate from imam-hatip schools every year, over half of whom are women, which undermines the government’s argument that the purpose of these schools is to train imams, as only 3,000 a year are needed.
As well as most ministries supporters of the AKP government have gained control of a number of independent boards, such as the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), the Capital Market Board (SPK), the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), the Competition Board (RK), the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK), the Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBITAK), the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) and the Higher Education Board (YÖK). It is the latter which is responsible for the appointment of rectors for Turkey’s 114 universities.
Part of the AKP’s EU-oriented reform programme has resulted in a reduction of the military’s influence, and in a late night sitting at the end of June the government passed an amendment to the Penal Code, which makes it possible for civilian courts to prosecute military personnel. However, as the law is a violation of the Turkish constitution, which gives military courts sole jurisdiction, the opposition party CHP has petitioned the Constitutional Court to annul the amendment.
This is the same Constitutional Court which last year found the AKP guilty of being “a focus for anti-secular activities” and halved the party’s state funding. Erdogan has threatened to shut down the Court, but it is likely it will be included in the AKP’s coming judicial reform, which will change the composition and jurisdiction of the Court and place it under government control.
A critical press
The greatest opposition to the government’s “social engineering” comes from a critical press and for this reason the Calik Group, where Erdogan’s son-in law is general manager, has taken over the Sabah-ATV media group, Turkey’s second largest. Most of the cost of the takeover has been financed by two state banks.
However, the Dogan Media Group (DMG), which has been responsible for revealing extensive corruption in government circles, sits on 50 percent of the market, and therefore the AKP has taken unusual steps to silence its critics. In February a tax fine of $592 million was imposed on the DMG and last week came the final blow – a record tax fine of $2.5 billion.
As Ismet Berkan, editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily Radikal concludes: “Unfortunately, this is the situation in new Turkey; a country far from democracy, yet close to fascism.”
This article is written by Robert Ellis and was first published at PoliGazette.
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