Yesterday, President Barack Obama held a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan following Erdogan's meeting with the president. The press availability provided an opportunity for journalists in the White House press corps to address recent controversies, including the revelation that the government has seized certain phone records from the Associated Press while investigating a national security leak. There was a one main question during the Q&A on press freedom, from journalist Jeff Mason, who asked whether that seizure "was an overreach."
The irony of that question is that standing just feet away from Mr. Mason and the president was the world's worst jailer of journalists.
There has rightly been outrage and shock at the idea that the government seized certain phone records from the AP as part of its investigation, but the fact that the White House press corps had little to say to or about Erdogan's track record on press freedom smacks of hypocrisy.
As far as I can tell, not a single reporter in the White House press corps included Erdogan's draconian record of imprisoning journalists in their write-up of Erdogan's visit, even though they often mentioned the AP subpoena controversy. As Amy Davidson at The New Yorker pointed out, "It would have been interesting to follow up the question to Obama about the A.P. with one to Erdogan about press freedom in Turkey."
Kudos to McClatchy's Roy Gutman who seemed to be a lone voice in the wilderness this week when he wrote an insightful, must-read piece on Erdogan's arbitrary roundup of journalists in Turkey:
Erdogan put pressure on their publications and attacked them by name or indirectly, raising a multitude of questions about whether Turkey has the advanced democracy it claims 10 years into Erdogan’s prime ministership.
“If this is journalism, then down with your journalism,” Erdogan declared in a speech about Milliyet, Cemal’s newspaper, after it published the minutes of Kurdish politicians’ talks with Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group the government had previously demonized as terrorists but is now negotiating with. [...]
In place of hard-hitting watchdog reporting, the result is self-censorship. Some journalists say 30 percent to 40 percent of their reports are never published.
“Flattery is the key thing in Turkish media,” Mert told McClatchy. “It has never been as bad as it is now.”
Major events go undiscussed.
And over at Foreign Policy, Christophe Deloire and Joel Simon deserve recognition as well for going where few American journalists went this week in their examination of Turkey's press freedom crackdown:
Despite regular promises that reform is just over the horizon, Erdogan appears to believe in the necessity of his heavy-handed tactics. When U.S. Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone Jr. expressed concern about Turkey's press freedom record, for example, Erdogan dismissed the 35-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service as a "rookie." In response to our defense of Turkish journalists, Erdogan has accused Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists of "supporting terrorism." [...] Turkey's poor record on press freedom undermines its credibility as a model and blunts its soft power.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), which has launched an international campaign to set free all journalists in Turkey, estimates that there are some 70 journalists sitting in jail in Turkey for their work.
Just last month,a foreign news editor in Turkey was handed down a conditional 14 month jail sentence for providing a mocking definition of Abdullah Gül University on Turkey's version of Urban Dictionary, writing sarcastically that "its graduates would continue to attend the Abdullah Gül's school of life [marked by] unemployment, bribing, [and] favoritism."
Earlier this year, Fusün Erdoğan, founder and director of a leftist broadcaster, wrote a powerful letter from jail in which she recounted being snapped up by plainclothes officers, blindfolded, thrown in jail and not told the reason for her arrest and detention for two whole years.
Days before Erdogan's visit, Max Hoffman and Michael Werz at the Center for American Progress released a chilling brief on the shocking round up and intimidation of journalists by Erdogan's government. As Hoffman and Werz accurately observe, "Prime Minister Erdoğan has come to view any criticism of his government as a personal attack."
The abuse of the Anti-Terror Law’s broad provisions has provoked criticism from the U.S. Department of State, the European Commission, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. [...] As Marc Pierini, former EU ambassador to Turkey, has written, the “judicial system tends to blur the line between the intention to incite, praise, legitimize, or relativize terrorist violence and the expression of an alternative, critical, or even disturbing opinion.”
The man who stood next to President Obama this week has made a habit out of suing reporters for libel for legitimate criticism or parody. He has thrown in jail more journalists than any other leader on the world stage today. He has met international calls for reform with anger and stubborn indignation. He continues with his chilling practices of intimidation because few hold him truly accountable for his undemocratic behavior. After all, when you stand before an elite press corps and the guy next to you is the one getting grilled on press freedom, why shouldn't you feel like you can and always will get away with it?