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Tag: Ece Temelkuran

  • Retweeting literature: How The London Book Fair was a Twitter success

    Retweeting literature: How The London Book Fair was a Twitter success

    by British Council Turkey

    As The London Book Fair, one of the biggest annual global publishing events, came to a close last week, Twitter turned out to be the greatest force taking the event to a new level of engagement and intimacy, to an audience that was far above its reach.

     

    “The internet brought freedom from authority of the literary establishment. More importantly it brought new forms of writing.” These words by accomplished writer Murat Gülsoy were uttered in a panel on the Future of Writing in last week’s global publishing event, theLondon Book Fair. They were also instantly shared with the world through a new form of writing, the 140-character tweet. One of the tweets from @BCLiterature, the Twitter account of British Council’s Literature team, included Gülsoy’s words minutes after they were said in the panel. The tweet ended with the writer’s name in a now familiar format,@MuratGulsoy. A new form of writing, indeed.

    The London Book Fair is a highly anticipated annual event for publishers, writers, and those who have an interest in the future of books. The fair, attracting around 25 thousand visitors each year, selects a country to become the market focus for that year. This year, it wasTurkey who took centre stage in last week’s London Book Fair, with a collaboration with the British Council for the sixth time. Some of the best names in contemporary Turkish writing and publishing were in the UK, giving UK audiences a rare opportunity to meet and interact with Turkish writers. While 20 writers from Turkey took part in discussions with UK writers, publishers, academics, cultural commentators and readers between 15 – 17 April, the official dates for the fair, the cultural programme for market focus will continue throughout this month.

    This year’s London Book Fair was one that made effective use of social media, especially the micro-blogging platform Twitter, that is popular both in Turkey and in the UK. Announcements were made, events were covered live, pictures were shared minutes after they were taken. Writers, publishers and aficionados of literature sent excited tweets throughout the course of The London Book Fair. It was an event that brought global a brand new meaning with the help of Twitter enthusiasts.

     

    Reaching millions through tweets and retweets

    Hashtags like #LBF13 and #LBFTurkey were used to draw Twitter followers interested in this global publishing event. “Müge Iplikci talks about feeling in the moment as a writer, in the present, but also a belatedness, writing out of Istanbul #LBFturkey,” wrote one tweet, while the Turkish writer continued her speech in the One Night in Istanbul panel.

    It was a thorough coverage of The London Book Fair on Twitter, one that could hardly have been done with traditional media. Social media savvy bookworms followed the event basically through four Twitter accounts, as they tweeted, retweeted and reached millions as they themselves were retweeted. @LondonBookFair was the official account of the fair, sending around 100 tweets each day to more than 21 thousand followers. Three accounts affiliated with the British Council shared tweets to different sets of audience.@BritishCouncil, @BCLiterature and @trBritish made sure that all the details of the events throughout the London Book Fair were shared.

    British Council Turkey’s Twitter account @trBritish worked busily as a hub both in Turkish and English, sending original tweets, and making sure that tweets from the other three accounts, as well those from the writers, publishers and commentators , were retweeted to the mostly Turkish followers. @trBritish was the Twitter account that was taken as a solid source for The London Book Fair, with major literary accounts like Vatan Kitap and Kitap Dünyası retweeting its tweets.

     

     

    Turkish writers as avid tweeters

    Turkish writers were also busy sending their own tweets throughout The London Book Fair, some about the events they were participating in, others more leisurely tweets on their UK visit. While the bestselling crime novelist Ahmet Ümit retweeted British Council Turkey’s tweets capturing his speech (“Writing a bestselling novel doesn’t show that you’re a successful writer. There’s only one criteria, and it’s time!”), he also made sure that he sent tweets about his trips to the Natural History Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, as well as his excitement about talking about detective novels in Edinburgh later in the week, “where Sherlock Holmes scribe Arthur Conan Doyle was born.”

    Acclaimed Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran was another avid tweeter, making sure that she thanked everyone for “the marvellous Book Fair” through mentioning their Twitter accounts:@LondonBookFair, @BritishCouncil, @trBritish, @englishpen, @Foyles, and@arcolatheatre. The internationally acclaimed Turkish writer Elif Shafak also sent out tweets and retweets to her followers, with the occasional picture added to her tweets. The picture of the London Book Fair in its last day was shared with the words, “As the fair comes to an end. @LondonBookFair Here’s Turkey with filled panels, important subjects, its writers, poets and academics…”

    “Last event of #LBF13 before handing over to S Korea: Mario Levi in conversation with Amanda Hopkinson @englishpen Literary Cafe #LBFTurkey” announced one tweet the end of The London Book Fair. Turkish writer Mario Levi’s words later, as tweeted by @BCLiterature, were a welcome contradiction to the new form of communication that is social media. “I still write by hand, with fountain pen and ink – it is important to feel the words.”

     

    Tags: ahmet ümit, british council, british council turkey, ece temelkuran, elif şafak, LBF, literature, mario levi, market focus, murat gülsoy, social media, The London Book Fair, twitter

    Category: Arts

    Posted on April 22, 2013 by British Council Turkey

    LBF13_

  • Turkey: “Free journalists” challenge courts

    Turkey: “Free journalists” challenge courts

    The trial of several journalists accused of being involved in an alleged plot to overthrow the Turkish government had degraded the status of press freedom in the country, writes Ece Temelkuran

    “We are spending our lifetimes running in between the courtrooms”, reads one of the tweets from outside the court. People are already talking about “the trial of the following day”. They are spending the night in the freezing cold weather of Istanbul and hoping that the court will release the 11 journalists who have been awaiting trial for almost a year. They are exchanging the dates of scheduled court cases against the journalists, students and politicians, complaining about the overlapping court dates.

    Today in Turkey, there are more than 100 journalists, over 500 students and more than 3,500 Kurdish and Turkish politicians who have been subjected to political trials and imprisoned for months or even years. Figures from an Associated Press survey show that one third of the world’s terrorists live in Turkey.

    Only a few journalists and some citizen reporters are reflecting the objective truth about what is going on in the country, since almost none of the national media dare to speak about these “terrorism cases”. TV networks don’t bother to mention their arrested colleagues. Instead they broadcast documentaries about aviation while the hearings are taking place, or they wait for 11 hours for the Prime Minister’s official statement to mention the 19 Kurdish children that have been killed in the recent bombardment.

    It is important that citizens are following up with these cases, as they are the only ones who are supporting the arrested journalists facing trial by covering the news mainly on Twitter.

    The case of investigative journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Sener, among those accused of being involved in an alleged plot to overthrow the Turkish government, is perhaps the most relevant example. The charges against these two reporters are quite blurry. “Causing political chaos through media” or being a member of a fake terrorist organisation are only two of the charges against them.

    Both of them are accused of being members of Ergenekon, an illegal paramilitary organisation aiming to topple the government. Both men have been investigating the organisation for years; the argument in the indictment is that they are using their journalism as a cover for their real “terrorist” identity.

    They have spent months in prison only to learn about the accusations and waited more than 11 months to have their first hearings. They are included in the Oda TV case, named after an internet portal deemed a hub for “terrorist activities”, with nine other journalists. Needless to say they were critics of the government.

    It might be assumed that such a case would create enormous media attention and wide-ranging support from the colleagues. But no. Since Prime Minister Erdogan personally threatened the journalists who criticise this case, just a handful of reporters showed up in the court. Most probably, colleagues were afraid to end up like I did few days ago: Unemployed.

    Or worse: ending up behind bars. As the indictment of the Oda TV case tells us, an email coming from a fake account is enough to link you to a terrorist organisation; an ordinary joke on tapped phone conversations might be considered “evidence” of “terrorist activities”. As Sener, in his defence statement during the hearing, put it: “The prosecutors don’t even bother to collect evidence against the journalists, let alone the ones in their favour”.

    The inadequacy and absurdity of the indictment that caused constant laughter in the court was not covered by Turkey’s press. It was on the first page of the New York Times but not the national newspapers. In addition, during last week’s hearings the judge banned mobile phones in the court, although despite the danger of a six-month prison term for acting against the court’s order, a few brave colleagues tweeted from inside the court. They are the only ones who broke the silence.

    Şık’s defence statement today was a historical and thorough answer to this age of silence in Turkey. He asked the question which most of the people don’t dare to ask even if they are not behind bars: “Is this a democracy or an empire of fear? I hope the silence of government is out of embarrassment!”

    He has every right to ask the question because he has been in prison, in complete isolation for 11 months, for writing a book that that alleged the involvement of Turkish security forces in the 2007 murder of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink.

    Unfortunately, it was not the ones who are supposed to answer Şık question but rather those who were brave enough to show up in court. They were all embarrassed when Sener cried when he said what mattered to him was to be judged by people’s hearts and minds, not by the court.

    Our friends and colleagues have not been discharged. One of them, 65-year-old Dogan Yurdakal, was not allowed to see his wife for the last time when she was dying from cancer. When asked in the court about his marital status he said: “I was married but now I am a widow.”

    These political arrests and the silence surrounding them has degraded the status of press freedom in Turkey. That is why colleagues are calling me nowadays, after hearing the news of my firing from Haberturk, to tell me that they are going to be unemployed, like me, sooner or later. They ask if there is any problem with the #freejournalists hashtag on Twitter, which we created to spread news about the Oda TV case. Not yet, is my answer. Not yet.

    Ece Temelkuran is the author of  ”Deep Mountain-Across the Turkish Armenian Divide” and “Book of the Edge”. She has been a journalist since 1993 and has been writing political columns since 2000. Her articles have been published in New Left Review, Le Monde Diplomatique, Global Voices Advocacy and the Guardian. 

    http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2012/01/turkey-press-freedom-ece-temelkuran/

  • Firing Turkey’s Ece Temelkuran: The Price of Speaking Out

    Firing Turkey’s Ece Temelkuran: The Price of Speaking Out

    Ece Interview pic 1
    Temelkuran has played a leading role on social media in defending 11 journalists who are currently on trial in Turkey for supporting illegal “terrorist” organizations. (Photo: Sedat Suna)

    By: Matthew Cassel

    Published Friday, January 6, 2012

    For the first time in her nearly two-decade-long career, journalist Ece Temelkuran is without a job. The feature reporter and columnist, currently in Tunisia, writes regularly about the plight of Turkey’s ethnic minorities. She was fired from her staff position at the Haberturk daily on Thursday after publishing articles critical of the Turkish government’s handling of the massacre of Kurds on December 28 at Iraq’s border.

    Turkey has long been feted by mainstream Western media as a bastion of secular democracy in a wider and largely Muslim region ruled by despots. However, critics argue that this image is allowing the Justice and Development Party (AKP) headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to become increasingly authoritarian. In recent years, journalists who report on stories not fitting within the government narrative have been targeted.

    Ninety-seven media professionals are currently in prison according to the Turkish Union of Journalists. In addition to this, The Economist magazine recently reported that 47 lawyers, more than 500 students and some 3,500 Kurdish activists are in prison. A recent survey by the Associated Press found that more than one-third of the world’s convicted “terrorists” are in Turkey.

    Temelkuran has played a leading role on social media (she started the hashtag #freejournalists on Twitter) in defending 11 journalists who are currently on trial in Turkey for supporting illegal “terrorist” organizations.

    After beginning her career as a correspondent in 1993, Temelkuran became a feature reporter in 2000 for Turkey’s Milliyet daily. In 2009, she left Milliyet to take a job at the nascent Haberturk, another major daily in Turkey. On Thursday Temelkuran received a phone call while in Tunisia that she had been dismissed from her job at the newspaper.

    In addition to covering Turkish affairs at home, Temelkuran has reported extensively from the Middle East and Latin America.

    I spoke to Ece Temelkuran on Thursday by phone about her career, her dismissal and the current state of journalism in Turkey.

    Matthew Cassel: When you’re not reporting around the world what types of stories do you generally write about inside Turkey?

    Ece Temelkuran: The Kurdish issue, Armenian issue, women rights, social issues…Not the most popular subjects, especially the Kurdish and Armenian issues.

    MC: Why aren’t they popular issues in Turkey?

    ET: Because since the establishment of Turkey [in 1923, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire] Kurds have been treated as second-class citizens and there has always been a lack of political and individual rights for them. There is deep and wide racism against Kurds in Turkey and there is the armed PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] movement and anything that goes under Kurdish issues is considered terrorism. So it’s not surprising Turkish media doesn’t cover the issue, and if they do they represent the government’s point of view.

    MC: Do you feel that you’ve always been able to write what you want to? Have you ever been censored?

    ET: I haven’t been censored, but when I reported from Kurdistan in northern Iraq, even mentioning the name ‘Kurdistan’ was taboo. And when I wrote about tens of Kurdish children being tortured in 2003 people were outraged. There has always been pressure on journalists who write on the Kurdish issue.

    But pressure on media has never been like this. Now it’s fear of being imprisoned, and once you’re in prison no one can get you out. [Journalists] Ahmet Sik and Nadim Sener have been in jail for 11 months, they didn’t even know until 6 or 7 months [after their arrest] what the charges [against them] are.

    Since there is government propaganda to legitimize these prosecutions, it’s very hard to get around this. The propaganda machine is huge. Not only nationally but internationally.

    MC: Did your firing come as a surprise?

    ET: Not really because the stand I took about the arrested journalists and the massacre [of 35 Kurdish civilians on Turkey’s border with Iraq] was too strong for the mainstream media to handle. Because the prime minister, a few days ago just after the massacre, [threatened] ones who use [the term] ‘massacre,’ and I’ve been using it on twitter and social media.

    MC: That sounds like Turkey’s recent warnings to France after its senate voted to recognize the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a “genocide.” Why is language so important for the Turkish government?

    ET: Because terminology creates political and ethical responsibility. Then if you use term ‘massacre,’ the prime minister might have to apologize for the massacre, which he doesn’t want to. Rather he wants to blame media. And that media was silent for about a half day after the incident. None of the networks gave the news until prime minister’s official statement about massacre, but that wasn’t enough. He only wants to see his thoughts [printed in the newspapers].

    MC: Why were you fired?

    ET: The last two articles I wrote might be perceived as ‘too controversial.’ One was called “Sir, yes Sir!” referring to the prime minister. The article ended “So you give the orders my commander but I’m not listening to you anymore. We are the rest of this country! We are not listening to your orders anymore!”

    The last article was about how 19 of those killed were kids between 12 and 15. He made this speech about Uludere [the border town where the attack happened] massacre, which was outrageous, and he blamed journalists. And I wrote an article repeating the number [of dead] ridiculing the prime minister’s cruel attitude in a bitter way.

    MC: Are you the only person writing like this in the mainstream media?

    ET: There are a few others, and all of them called me today to say that ‘we are coming as well to the land of unemployment, just wait for us.’ They say, ‘we are writing our articles as if we’re writing our last articles.’ Everyone is pessimistic about the coming days.

    MC: Why are they targeting veteran journalists like Nadim Sener and Ahmet Sik?

    ET: Because they were writing books about the Gulen movement [Islamists believed to have close ties to the AKP] getting organized in police department and intelligence services. They took the manuscript of Ahmet’s book, The Army of the Imam (which has since been published online). Nadim’s book [on how the Gulen movement is organizing in the police and state intelligence] is unpublished.

    They were reporting on different things, especially criticizing the government and revealing the bad practices of government.

    MC: Who was Hrant Dink?

    ET: He was an Armenian journalist and had his own paper. He was a vocal journalist about Armenian rights and oppressed minorities. And he was shot dead in the center of Istanbul in his neck. Nadim has been writing books about him. He wrote about police negligence in the investigation into Hrant’s killing. Hrant was a dear friend as well. Since he wished me to write a book on Armenian issue before his death I dedicated my book Deep Mountain to him. He helped me a lot.

    MC: Did Dink’s killing change journalism in Turkey?

    ET: Armenian issue was already a taboo for mainstream media but after his death we learned that we shouldn’t talk about Armenian issue more. His funeral was historic though, because 100,000 attended and they all chanted, “We are all Armenians.” Armenians have always been despised by the nationalist Turks, so that funeral was a turning point in modern Turkish history.

    MC: Did it create fear among you and your colleagues?

    ET: It wasn’t the only [attack on journalists], and it didn’t stop there. After that came the mass arrests, there have been many incidents that created fear among journalists.

    This time [the attacks are] done under name of ‘democracy,’ or as AKP supporters call it ‘advanced democracy.’ This time it’s hard to get the things out there and say we’ve been oppressed. When there was a coup and fascist generals in power with their uniforms it was easier to say who were the bad guys. Now it’s more complicated because fascism didn’t show up in uniforms this time. That’s why international media has taken too long to understand what’s really going on in Turkey.

    MC: How has Turkey managed to maintain that democratic image to the outside world?

    ET: Through international and national propaganda. Mainstream western media is serving their own governments’ foreign policy interests. So they wanted to see this model of Muslim democracy, which looks good from outside and has freedom of people, ‘bon pour l’orient’ (French for “good enough for the orient”). It’s not good enough, neither for people in Turkey or the rest of Middle East.

    To the Western world it tries to show democracy, and to the Eastern side it tries to show its Muslim side. Obviously it’s not a democracy anymore. As for the Islam, I am not an expert but such cruelty cannot come from religion.

    MC: Do you think Turkey is losing that democratic image?

    ET: The image is changing for sure.

    Today, I was surprised to see the news on the front page of the New York Times, and I think finally our colleagues around the world are coming to their senses about Turkey. They’re no longer being deceived by these lies of ‘AKP democracy.’

    MC: Over the past year, you’ve reported from pro-democracy uprisings in a number of Arab countries. Do you see similarities between the repressive forms of government that people have been rising against and your own government in Turkey?

    ET: Now there are rising numbers of people that think Prime Minister Erdogan is acting like Bashar Assad. After the Uludere massacre they’ve been referring to his previous statement about Bashar Assad, “a president who kills his own people is not legitimate anymore.”

    MC: Have activists, journalists and others who want change in Turkey been inspired by the Arab uprisings?

    ET: They [demand change] already, but when they do they’ve been attacked violently. Every demonstration that happened after elections has been suppressed by tear gas. Especially by Kurdish people, they’ve been violently suppressed and attacked. Now and then they do protest, but the opposition in Turkey has been divided into too many parts, they’re too split to create an alternative [to the AKP].

    MC: You’ve already lost your job, are you worried what else can happen to you when you return to Turkey?

    ET: I am freaking out, it’s not the imprisonment necessarily, but now I feel like I have this stamp of persona non grata by the government. I am afraid I might be unemployed for a while because no newspaper would employ me because of that stamp. And if they did I’d be really surprised.

  • Turkey: No tweets from the courtroom!

    Turkey: No tweets from the courtroom!

    “Today the judge is more strict” says the tweet, “One undercover police for each row! All monitoring the ones who are tweeting!“

    In Istanbul-Turkey, today is the 2nd day of the hearings of 10 arrested journalists. Turkey is the leader country even before China and Iran with the figures of 107 arrested journalists.

    Since the national mainstream media is not covering the news properly, colleagues of the detained journalists have no other choice but to tweet from the courtroom. According to Turkish law, the hearings are open unless a court order forbids it. But since yesterday, the judge has been constantly warning, then threatening those who try to give news from the courtroom. Today he said that those tweeting will be subjected to legal procedure. Neither the journalists nor the lawyers tweeting from the courtroom didn’t really understand what the “procedure” will be. Alas, they tweet anyway.

    The political arrests have become the legal (and lethal) weapon of the Turkish government to silence dissents and journalists. According to AFP figures 1/3 of the terrorists in the world are in Turkey. It is necessary to remind that the 500 detained students, 107 journalist and thousands of Kurdish politicians are considered to be “terrorists” in these political cases. Ironically, yesterday Interior Minister of Turkey said “Terrorism is not only on the mountains but in poetry, in paintings, in the universities, in NGO’s. We will monitor those as well“.

    To Keep updated, please follow @oemoral, @petite1ze, @etemelkuran for live tweeting from the court.

    Creative Commons License

    Written by Ece Temelkuran

    via Turkey: No tweets from the courtroom! – Global Voices Advocacy.