Press freedom attacked in Turkey, Azerbaijan


This 21 February 2017 video is called ‘Turkey is the biggest jail for journalists in the world’.

Another video which used to be on YouTube used to say about itself:

Turkey is sending its journalists to prison

29 July 2016

Erdogan orders to seize properties of 131 media outlets, including 45 newspapers and 16 TV channels, and transfer them to the Treasury.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Journalists hauled before court as crackdown goes on

Saturday 30th July 2016

TWENTY-ONE journalists were hauled before an Istanbul court yesterday to answer vague accusations of “involvement” in the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Detention orders for 42 journalists were issued on Monday and police are still searching for half of them.

Press freedom in Turkey has long been under threat — Can Dundar, the editor of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, was jailed for five years in May after his paper published evidence that Turkey was smuggling weaponry to Islamist terror groups in Syria.

But the failed July 15 coup has prompted a massive clampdown. A three-month state of emergency has been declared and media victims include 131 newspapers that have been ordered to close.

TV channels and radio stations have also been shut down. Yesterday the censorship blanket was extended to Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan as the Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the National Council on Television and Radio to strip TV station ANS of its broadcasting licence since its reporting of the coup “ran counter to a strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey.”

Around 1,700 Turkish soldiers have been dishonourably discharged since the coup, while 40 per cent of generals and admirals have been dismissed. On Thursday night, 99 colonels were promoted to general as part of a mammoth reorganisation to ensure the army’s loyalty to Mr Erdogan.

Reality is stranger than fiction: It’s full-on “House of Cards” in Azerbaijan as President Ilham Aliyev has appointed his wife, Mehriban, to become the country’s first ever vice president.

Azeri elite money laundering, bribery: here.

8 thoughts on “Press freedom attacked in Turkey, Azerbaijan

  1. Let’s Resist the Spiral of Violence and Militarist Imposition

    Military coups have brought along human rights violations in every location they have taken place. In every place where the army has taken control by force, the violence has been further institutionalized and the societies who witness the coups have been stuck in spirals of violence. The process we have been living since July 15 night is making us experience a variety of this spiral of violence. On one side military coup scenarios are being put into practice by “Peace at Home Council”, on the other side AKP government’s so called “democratic moves” are on the agenda.

    This equation will enable AKP to further centralize the government by gathering the power in one hand and apply the totalitarian methods even more. Later in this process, the law enforcement forces can be controlled directly by the government; fascism and militarism will be more institutionalized under the name of “democratization”.

    Yesterday night, the people who were on the streets during the military coup attempt against Erdoğan’s government were rained bullets and countless people were killed. On the other hand, even though the government says that “the coup has been suppressed by the public”, the calls made by the government and the people who have been in the streets upon these calls since yesterday night are a fascist mobilization rather than a democratization move. The sentence “I’m the Chief Commander” which Erdoğan repeated oftentimes yesterday provides a basis for militarism and militarist culture to strengthen even more so.

    The soldiers who were under orders in accordance with the obligatory military service law were being declared “heroes” while they were destroying cities in Kürdistan and “martyrs” when they died doing so; on the other hand, the soldiers who got arrested or surrendered after taking part in the military coup attempt under the same chain of command were subjected to torture and lynch on the streets. In the media, there are photos of soldiers whose throats were cut. While the conscientious objectors who refuse to die and kill are being charged with “insubordination”, the soldiers who obey orders of their superiors are facing charges of “high treason”.

    During the process we are living through, refusing military service, not taking up arms is of course important; but unfortunately it is not enough. Yesterday night in Atatürk Airport, the people shouting “Kill for you, die for you!”, the politicians saying “Congratulations to who have spilled blood.”; clearly show that a militarist and para-militarist spiral of violence has been set to motion.

    Our part in this process as conscientious objectors is not only to refuse obligatory military service and taking up arms but also to resist getting stuck in this spiral of violence and against the militarist imposition.

    Conscientious Objection Association of Turkey (http://vicdaniret.org/) 16-7-2016

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