Page 8 - Internationalist Magazine 2015 75

T

FRONT

The Pen (or the Blank Page) May

Be Mightier than the Sword.

Turkish Newspaper Protests Government Media

Crackdown with Blank Columns

This September, the Turkish daily newspaper Sözcü daily said the presidential palace and the government has,

protested a government crackdown on the news media especially over the past year, been increasing the pressure

amid growing controversy over the military campaign on media groups critical of the government. Sözcü ’s

against Kurdish separatists.
editors claimed that the current bout of government

Columnists from the Sözcü daily submitted blank repression is even worse than the measures employed

columns with empty op-ed pieces and published a by Turkey’s military dictatorship from 1980-1983. At

headline criticizing the Turkish government’s pressure Sözcü alone, over the last year, the government has led

on media-- at the same time that the of ces of a Turkish 57 complaints against the newspaper itself and over 60

conglomerate and media group—Koza pek Holding— complaints against its journalists, the newspaper reported.

were raided by police in a government-orchestrated Many of the complaints revolve around vague

operation in Ankara—a few days after claims by accusations of “insulting the of ce of the president” by

whistleblower “Fuat Avni” said that a crackdown the printing “rumors”—but usually without specifying which

media was imminent.
part of an article is supposedly false.

The newspaper featured a headline that read “If Sözcü Sözcü called for the government to respect

stays silent, then Turkey stays silent,” according to Today’s decisionsby Turkey’s own Constitutional Court and the

Zaman, which covers Turkish politics and media.
European Court of Human Rights regarding free speech

In an article explaining the empty columns, the Sözcü
and press freedom.

6 the internationalist