Turkey: The Powerful And The Paranoid
April 3, 2012 § Leave a comment
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/turkey-the-powerful-and-the-paranoid/152/
Photo by ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images
‘Treason’ in Turkey
February 20, 2012 § Leave a comment
Prosecutors wage war on suspected coup conspirators—but at what cost to the country?
A Brawl Over Turkish Press Freedom
February 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/a-brawl-over-turkish-oppression-of-the-press/
Susanne Fowler, February 4, 2012
PARIS — A war of words between an American novelist and the prime minister of Turkey over press freedom is playing out in a befittingly public venue: in newspapers and on Web sites.

Paul Auster, author of “The New York Trilogy” and other works, told Rendezvous by telephone from his studio in Brooklyn on Friday that he had told a Turkish journalist that he would not visit Turkey, nor China for that matter, as a way to protest the jailing of scores of journalists and writers there. « Read the rest of this entry »
RSF: Turkey Loses Ground again in World Press Freedom Index
January 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
http://bianet.org/english/world/135713-turkey-loses-ground-again-in-world-press-freedom-index
Turkey fell back ten places to number 148 in the 2011-2012 World Press Freedom Index. According to the report of Reporters Without Borders, press freedom is in an even worse state in only 31 countries.
While Turkey was on 138th position out of a total of 179 surveyed countries last year, the country fell back a further ten places to rank no. 148 this year.
The RSF report claims that Turkey is “back to old habits”. « Read the rest of this entry »
Turkey: Court Acquits Journalist Who Interviewed Kurdish Separatist
December 30, 2011 § Leave a comment
Reporters Without Borders
December 29, 2011
Reporters Without Borders said Thursday it hailed journalist Ertugrul Mavioglu’s acquittal by an Istanbul court earlier today on a charge of “propaganda in support of a terrorist organization” for interviewing Murat Karayilan of the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), which the authorities regard as the urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). « Read the rest of this entry »
Freedom of expression, freedom of press
December 24, 2011 § Leave a comment
22.12.2011, Murat Yetkin, Hurriyet Daily News
Reacting to French Parliament’s initiative to ban saying that the 1915 killings of Armenians was not genocide, Turkish Foreign Minister said yesterday in his Libération piece that the French take was a violation of freedom of expression.
The French take is beset on a 2008 European Union framework decision. There are certain well defined caveats on freedom of expression when it comes to human life. For example, it is forbidden in Germany to praise the Holocaust in Germany and Europe under occupation during World War II and claim that it was not genocide against Jewish people; nearly 6 million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazis just because of being who they are, as ruled by the Nuremberg Trials after the war.
I am not going to get into the debate whether the 1915 massacres, for which I feel deeply sorrow and regret, are of the same kind as the Holocaust.
But I can debate that the poisonous competition in the French political atmosphere now puts all unlike matters in the same basket.
Therefore, Davutoğlu has a point when he approaches the issue on the basis of freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression and its twin sister freedom of press are under questioning in today’s Turkey too. « Read the rest of this entry »