Internet bill pending, more censorship marches in

As the government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unleashes all the instruments of politics with full force to obstruct the progress of the graft probes, we are now heading — at full speed — to the silencing of the remaining free news channels and information on the Internet.
The Internet bill, aimed at placing the domain under full government control and leaving websites, blogs and social media at the mercy of the authorities — with no appeals process at all — is under way. Given the circumstances, I have no doubt that it will pass, as Erdoğan is pushing for this. 
But, even without seeing it happen directly, we have now begun to see the signal flares of direct censorship — with the consequences of imprisonment if the censorship rules are not abided by.
 
The Turkish media are already under a gag order due to two consecutive court orders to block reporting of the graft probes.
 
The "publicity ban" not only goes against the media's duty to guard the "public interest," but also contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the precedents set by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
 
Yet, most of the "central" media, including the newspapers Milliyet, Vatan, Posta, Hürriyet, Habertürk and the mainstream TV channels, such as NTV, CNN Türk and HabertürkTV, have obeyed the court order, and as many of them did during the Gezi protests, they have once more ignored a major, critical story, keeping the public in the dark.
 
As if the court orders were not scandalous enough, now the powerful state authority of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) sent a letter of notice with a strict warning to at least three news portals to "immediately remove" a story about the role of the prime minister and his son and claims of bribery in the financing of the Sabah daily and ATV.
 
The source of the story was Umut Oran, a deputy of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), who had submitted a question to the government.
 
"Is your coordinator in the Sabah-ATV sale [former Communications Minister] Binali Yıldırım? Did you assign Bilal Erdoğan to check the process?" Oran asked Erdoğan in a parliamentary question.
 
The interesting part is, this time it is not only the independent media that are targeted but also the elected opposition's freedom of expression. It is known that both Parliament's official website and Oran's personal blog have displayed the motion.
 
Deputies from the CHP and Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have reacted to this. They believe this censorship has now penetrated into Parliament with the intention of criminalizing free speech.
 
The question for the media now is whether there will be a group action of defiance against the gag orders and, if so, which media outlets will join in.
 
Over the weekend it became clear that some portals, with T24 and Zaman in the lead, would do so.
 
"T24 rejects this censorship," wrote Hasan Cemal, who, after being fired from the Milliyet daily, is a chief columnist with the news portal.
 
"T24 will not abide by this ban because it will defend Internet freedom against Erdoğan, who wants to take it prisoner."
 
"It is becoming clear that, after newspapers and TV, the Internet and social media are at the threshold of a very arduous period. Hard times are ahead for all of us who refuse to be among the government supporters and be treated as 'tamed' journalists."
 
As a symbol of the defense of media freedom, Zaman, Radikal, Cumhuriyet, Bugün and some leftist newspapers have continued to publish details of the Sabah-ATV affair. Needless to say, the banning and censorship efforts will intensify, because the backbone of good journalism in Turkey will not let go of a powerful story, as it did not with the bombing in Uludere/Roboski.
 
It should not go unnoted that Freedom House will issue a comprehensive report on Monday on the gloomy state of media developments in Turkey. It speaks at length of an "atmosphere of complicity, censorship and outright stenography on the part of a large segment of the media" — and issues a "to do" list for Erdoğan, the European Union and the US. I am sure you will find all the details of the report in this newspaper, and I am equally sure that large portions of the "central" media will neglect it, as the pro-government media will use it as another example of the "international chaos lobby."

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