E. Barış Altıntaş, Journalist
As Russian journalists struggled with increasing hostility for much of the 2010s, leading up to their Orwellian realities of inoagents, the undesired and brutal imposition of NewSpeak and Russia’s crazed war in February of 2022, another storm — albeit at a slower rate — was brewing in Turkey, a neighboring country whose skepticism and distrust of both the West and the East has paralleled that of Russia for centuries.
Much like the better days of Russia, the 2000s of Turkey — with the Islam-inspired Justice and Development Party (AKP) coming to power — was filled with hope and belief in democratization in Turkey.
Centuries-old taboos — what are usually referred to as the state’s red lines — such as the Kurdish question, the Armenian genocide, and the issues with the country’s Alevi populations could be discussed. But the biggest taboo of all was the unshakable status of the all-powerful military — or military tutelage — and even that was opened to public discussion.
The government actively pushed for and successfully managed to start accession talks with the EU in 2005. It was also taking giant strides to overcome past issues: assets seized from non-Muslim foundations were being returned, talks were being held with the PKK, and Turkey was seeking a rapprochement with all of its neighbors.
However, journalists were the first to feel the signs of what was to come.
Banu Acun, a veteran TV journalist who now resides in Berlin, was one of those. Acun began her career by watching journalist Mehmet Ali Birand, now-legendary 32. Day[1] investigative news hour. It was her dream to work there.
Her dream would eventually come true. In her career of 30 years, she worked as part of the 32nd Day team for a decade. Past episodes — available currently on YouTube show the extent of journalism that was possible at the time — a relic of the old Turkey, where the state’s red lines were in place, but they were much wider.
This was a time when real democracy seemed to be within reach. However, it proved to be an illusion. As Turkey’s media conglomerates started being bought over by Erdoğan allies one by one after being confiscated by State’s Savings Insurance Fund (TMSF), the unprecedented atmosphere of freedoms proved to be only superficial. For journalists, the early warning signs came much before; for Banu Acun, the earliest was the 2007 elections:
“I think this was after the 2007 elections when he was elected for the second time. For it became evident that he had become very powerful now, and he could now intervene in the dealings of media bosses.”
When is the right time to leave?
This wasn’t the case only for the pro-government media, being bought by government allies and being aided by interest-free credits from state banks, which would never ask for the loan to be paid.
She says: “This was also the case for mainstream media such as CNN Türk,” where she worked at the time. And censorship became visible for her for the first time circa 2008 when her team was investigating a swindling scandal in Germany, which had launched a major investigation into the Islamist Deniz Feneri Association for defrauding hundreds of citizens of Turkish origin out of millions of dollars.
“At this stage, we requested the German prosecutors to provide us with all the relevant case files, initiating our investigation into the implicated holdings in the scandal. Our findings revealed a startling fact – one-third of the AKP deputies were board members of these implicated companies. The preliminary findings of our two-month investigation were broadcast twice as teasers by CNN Türk, for which we were compensated. However, the full program never made it to air. This evident act of censorship was not disclosed publicly at that time, as our boss preferred to remain silent on the matter.”
Another breaking point in Turkey’s case would come later in 2013: the Gezi protests.
Indeed, the brutal suppression of the widely peaceful Gezi protests against the AKP government in 2013 is a testament to this. Nearly a decade after the protests, a court sentenced[2] civil society leader Osman Kavala to life in prison without parole for “attempting to overthrow the Turkish government by force” by allegedly orchestrating the Gezi Protests. Seven others were given 18 years in prison for supporting Gezi.
“After Gezi, our ranks were tightened,” she says. The existing atmosphere of polarization had reached its peak, massively working in favor of Erdoğan.
As always, the media were the first to feel the heat: “All of our friends who participated in Gezi were blacklisted. They lost their media jobs, and some were sent to jail.”
Acun and her family moved abroad a few times, but they eventually returned to Turkey slightly before the July 15, 2016, coup attempt.
The late 2010s in Turkey markets the beginning of a new transition. Decade-old alliances were shattering, and new structures were emerging. The collapse of the AKP government’s long-standing partnership with the Islamist Fethullah Gülen group against the secular elite became public for the first time. Gülenist prosecutors tried to persecute Erdoğan’s beloved chief of the National Intelligence Agency (MİT), Hakan Fidan.[3], who is Turkey’s foreign minister as of the time of writing, and tried to charge AKP ministers for corruption.
Things had gotten worse. “Can Dündar was in prison,” Acun remembers.
Dündar — now in exile in Germany — was imprisoned in 2015 at the time over a news report alleging that the Turkish government supplied arms to jihadist groups in Syria. He left the country after his release.
Despite all of this, Banu Acun thought they could stay: there were still a number of independent media outlets. “I was thinking at least the Cumhuriyet newspaper is still here, as well as some other outlets. I thought we should continue to fight for as long as we can.”
But then the coup attempt happened.For Acun, who worked as a correspondent for Erdoğan before, this was the biggest threshold. “I remembered on July 15 the poem that he read: Minarets are our bayonets, Mosques are our barracks, and Believers are our soldiers.[4]. That night, I felt it. And it really was like that.”
She and her husband, who is also a journalist, decided that they would “certainly leave” if the government made a move on Cumhuriyet, one of the last standing independent newspapers.
On October 16, police raided the Istanbul office of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet and detained at least 12 journalists and directors of the newspaper. Yet they stayed in Turkey.
As of the end of August, nearly a hundred journalists were in prison. “Then they started arresting the Kurdish politicians, first Gülten Kışanak and Selahattin Demirtaş and then others,” Banu Acun remembers. Yet they stayed.
“I think it was when they arrested Osman Kavala. That’s when we eventually knew it was time.”
When they were packing up for the big move, they received a phone call. Their friend Deniz Yücel, who was Die Welt’s Turkey correspondent at the time, was being questioned by the police department.
“We were packing stuff and also trying to follow up on whether Deniz would be arrested.” And he would be. He would spend almost a full year behind bars in Silivri Prison. It would take many negotiations between then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkey’s Erdoğan to release him.
In February of 2017, she moved to Berlin.
Always under attack: The Kurdish Saga
An exile story I know too well is that of Çağdaş Kaplan, a Kurdish journalist and former editor-in-chief of Yeni Yaşam.
A former colleague and friend, we met on a clear and chilly day in Berlin to speak for our documentary.
Like any Kurdish journalist, Çağdaş has had a career marked by challenges. He started journalism in 2008 as an intern at the Istanbul branch of Dicle Haber Ajansı (Dicle News Agency), where he worked for about a year before transitioning to a reporter role. He later moved to the role of courthouse reporter at Beşiktaş Courthouse.
“Later on, I worked as a journalist in various different cities in Turkey, especially in Kurdish cities.”
However, Kaplan’s journalistic career was not without interruptions. He recalls, “In 2011, there was an operation against Kurdish press institutions. Along with 36 journalists, including those from the [pro-Kurdish] Özgür Gündem newspaper and the Dicle news Agency, we were detained. All newspaper buildings were raided, our offices were stormed, and I was imprisoned for about a year.”
He was released in 2011 and started working for Dicle News Agency.
Imprisonment and raids, but when did he really start to think of leaving?
“In the 1990s, there might have been worse, bloodier times. This has always continued, but from my perspective, the period when the greatest pressures on politics and media increased corresponds to the years 2015-2016.”
Between 1990 and 1995, arguably Turkey’s darkest five years, 33 journalists were killed, in addition to many activists and business people. A majority of those killed were Kurdish.
But still, 2015 – 2016 was significant. Kaplan says:
AKP’s reaction to losing its majority in the 2015 elections was an important turning point. The lead-up to these elections wa s marred by several violent incidents, culminating in an abrupt end to the peace talks Turkey was having with the PKK:
“The AKP, or rather Erdoğan, suddenly put the peace talks on ice, acting as if it had never happened, as if it had never been experienced.”
This was followed by military operations by the Turkish military in late 2015 and early 2016 in nine provinces, in which many civilians were also allegedly killed by the security forces. “Tanks entered towns, civilian areas were bombed, people died, and their bodies couldn’t be retrieved for days,” Kaplan says.
In the end, Çağdaş Kaplan’s decision to leave Turkey was a culmination of years of challenges and legal pressures stemming from his work in Kurdish media.
“Working in Kurdish media means being prepared to face trials,” he says.
Kaplan’s legal troubles began in 2009, and over the following years, he faced numerous terrorist propaganda cases and minor charges. “My first case started in 2009. Then, in 2011, there were propaganda cases and other minor cases. We knew this would happen.”
“After founding Yeni Yaşam, not only did the newspaper face trials, but my personal, years-old Twitter posts were used as a pretext for issuing arrest warrants against me. I already had many cases pending,” he explains.
Realizing the mounting legal risks and the potential long-term imprisonment, Kaplan decided to leave Turkey.
“I understood that I could no longer continue under these conditions. There was a looming sentence of nearly 40 years if these processes continued. If I were to be re-arrested, my previous sentences would be ratified, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave prison again. That’s when I decided to leave the country.”
Two murders, new pilgrimages
The story of journalist Metin Cihan is closely tied to the tragic fate of an 11-year-old girl, Rabia Naz Vatan, in Turkey. On an April day in 2018, Rabia Naz was found critically injured outside her home in Eynesil, a town in the Giresun Province. She later died from her injuries.
Initially, local authorities ruled her death as a suicide, suggesting that she had jumped from the roof of her family’s home. Later, the family and journalists, including Metin Cihan, who is currently exiled, would dispute the narrative.
Her death became emblematic of the broader situation in Turkey regarding the absolute lack of judicial impartiality, media freedom, and the extent of evil produced by the powerful autocratic elite under Erdoğan. The stuff of essays on the nature of evil and crime for philosophers like Hannah Arendt.
It soon became evident that Rabia was hit by a car and that local officials, including the mayor and police, were covering up the incident. The case gained significant public attention, partly due to the efforts of journalists and activists who questioned the official narrative and called for a more thorough investigation. Among them was Metin Cihan, whose investigative reporting brought national attention to the inconsistencies and alleged cover-up in the case.
Cihan’s work involved scrutinizing the evidence, interviewing witnesses, and challenging the official account, which suggested inconsistencies and possible foul play.
Initially, Cihan believed that as he continued to investigate and stood by his journalism, the case would be solved, and he even communicated this optimism to Rabia Naz’s family. However, he soon realized that the situation was more dangerous than he had anticipated.
The first investigations against him were related to his activism during the Gezi protests of 2013. Nothing much came out of it. However, his personal turning point was during a trip across Turkey with his son. The manager of the hostel where he stayed said police officers had come looking for him. They’d asked, “Why are you letting a terrorist stay here?” They also said they were seeking an arrest warrant for him.
The hostel owner later approached Cihan, feeling the need to inform him about the incident. That’s when he decided to leave.
Another journalist who had to leave after a murder that implicated an AKP deputy was. Baransel Ağca. In his career, he mostly worked as an editor until 2019, when he started digging into troubling reports on his own social media account.
“I started reporting exclusive news starting in 2019. And I can say that I have lost my peace since then. Because the news I made disturbed others, I also lost my peace.”
His first case was in 2019, after a report on migrants: “The next day, I was sued under Article 301 on charges of ‘insulting Turkishness and the institutions of the state.'”
Following his reports on the fate of Kyrgyz student Yeldana Kaharman, who was raped and murdered in Elazığ, he was faced with mounting legal troubles and threats. Eventually, he had to leave Turkey.
This article is a part of the publication titled “In the Shadow of Two Palaces”.
[1] 32. Gün,” also known as “32nd Day” in English, was a prominent news program in Turkey, both nationally and internationally. Starting in 1985 and created by Mehmet Ali Birand, it holds the record as Turkey’s longest-standing and highly influential news show. Initially broadcasted on the state-owned channel TRT 1 from 1985 to 1992, it later transitioned to various private TV channels.
[2] “Court sentences Kavala to life in prison,” Al Jazeera report from April 2022, accessed January 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/25/turkish-court-sentences-activist-osman-kavala-to-life-in-prison
[3] Reuters article on prosecutor attempts to charge MİT Chief Hakan Fidan https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-intelligence-idUSTRE81A0J520120211/
[4] Turkey’s leader Erdoğan was imprisoned for reciting this poem early on in his career in 2002.
Journalisten und Anwälte für Meinungsfreiheit (JAM) e.V. 