The challenges of democracy and press freedom in Turkey

"In the last decade, Turkey has taken major steps in political, economic, and international arenas. A Muslim country with six decades of electoral experience further consolidated its democracy by introducing major reforms aimed to demilitarize its politics. Its economy is strong despite the global recession and growing at record levels. Its foreign policy is increasingly assertive, taking advantage of being a member of NATO and an aspiring member of the European Union, while, at the same time, exerting considerable influence in the larger Middle East. The assertion that Turkey presents a model for its Arab neighbors jolted by popular revolts demanding democracy is now widely recognized. Despite this positive note, however, Turkey is also battling with two major domestic threats. First is the Ergenekon criminal network that had been operational perhaps for decades but unearthed in 2007 following a series of investigation. The Turkish government began arresting and prosecuting Ergenekon members in 2008, among which there were retired military generals, military officers, academics, businessmen, and journalists, who were allegedly conspiring to overthrow the elected government and install a military rule. The second major threat is the PKK, a pan-Kurdish separatist movement that has been actively terrorizing the country since mid-1980s, which, in the last six years had started to install the structures of a parallel Kurdish state in southeast Turkey known as the KCK. The government's response to the PKK/KCK threat has been mostly in military terms, but lately it took a new twist. In 2009, the government began to target this parallel state structure, arresting those affiliated with it including, among others, journalists and press workers. The Turkish government's campaign against these two organizations together, which include many arrested journalists, press workers,

and distributors, have contributed to an image of Turkey where opposition is silenced, press freedom is curtailed, and journalists are imprisoned. The arrests are also frequently used to portray the AKP administration as being increasingly leaning towards authoritarian policies. There are two problems with this view. First, although it is commendable that the international media rigorously scrutinizes press freedom in Turkey, the fact that these arrests are not solely about journalists but rather journalists affiliated with and sometimes acting as operatives of the above organizations, is rarely mentioned. Second, these simultaneous arrests in relation to two cases are construed as a systematic campaign against the critics of the government, although they began under different contexts and are proceeding independently of each other. Therefore, the recent wave of journalist arrests should be interpreted not in the context of press freedom but in the context of Turkey's ongoing struggle against the domestic challenges which threatens its democracy and unity. Focusing on these challenges, this paper examines the recent cases of journalist arrests in Turkey"--Summary.