ISTANBUL // Turkish media outlets, ranging from small dailies catering to pro-Kurdish readers to the country's most powerful newspaper and television conglomerate, have come under strong pressure from civilian and military authorities, a development that poses a threat to press freedom in this EU candidate country, observers say. "It is a very difficult environment for the media," David Dadge, the director of the International Press Institute, a Vienna-based non-governmental group advocating press freedom, said by telephone yesterday. "The government, the military, the authorities are over-reacting." Last week, Turkish tax authorities imposed a fine of 3.75 billion lira (Dh 7.3bn) on Dogan Yayin Holding, Turkey's leading media company, for failing to pay tax on business deals between 2005 and 2007. The company, led by Aydin Dogan, said it would ask the government to review the fine. Three days after the fine against the Dogan group was announced, the military said it was taking legal action against a journalist of the independent daily newspaper Taraf. The general staff asked a civilian state prosecutor in Istanbul to charge a Taraf reporter because he reported in the newspaper in June that an officer of the general staff in Ankara had drawn up a plan to destabilise the government. The military has said the alleged plan is a fake. The actions against the Dogan group and Taraf came less than one month after courts in Istanbul closed down two small pro-Kurdish newspapers, Gunluk and Ozgur Ortam, for a month after alleging they published propaganda of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a Kurdish rebel group that has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy since 1984. Of all the recent cases, the record fine against the Dogan group has attracted the most attention because Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has been engaged in a public stand-off with the media conglomerate for about a year. The row started when Mr Dogan's media, which include top-selling newspapers Hurriyet and Milliyet as well as the television news channel CNN-Turk, reported that an investigation into a Turkish charity in Germany had unearthed evidence that pro-government media in Turkey, and even Mr Erdogan's government, may have benefited from an illegal transfer of money collected in Germany. Mr Erdogan denied the allegations and said Mr Dogan, one of Turkey's richest men, was trying to put pressure on the government because he failed to get permission for a property development in Istanbul. Since then, the prime minister has called on his supporters to boycott the Dogan press. Given the tensions between Mr Erdogan and the Dogan media, many observers say that the fine is political in nature. The Journalists Association of Turkey condemned the authorities' move against the Dogan group, saying the government wanted to push the media company out of business. Ahmet Akabey, head of the Association of Contemporary Journalists, another group representing journalists, told Turkish media that the government was "following a policy of weakening or destroying those who are against it". The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, also was swift to react. "When the sanction is of such magnitude that it threatens the very existence of an entire press group, like in this case, then freedom of the press is at stake," a spokesman for the European Commission said in Brussels, adding that the commission was "very concerned". He said the EU would "convey its concerns to the Turkish authorities". The EU is also likely to include the episode in its new progress report on Turkey, a yearly balance sheet for EU candidate countries, which is to be published on October 14. Reforms designed to bring Turkey closer to the EU and launched under Mr Erdogan's government in recent years have widened freedom of speech and the freedom of the media, although there are still many laws on the books that restrict press freedom. In last year's progress report on Turkey, the EU noted that "legal restrictions on freedom of expression remain a cause for concern". The legal action triggered by the military against the Taraf newspaper is an example of what the EU regards as deficits. Proceedings against its reporter Mehmet Baransu were launched under Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, according to press reports. The law, which, among other things, bans insults against the Turkish nation and the military, was amended in 2007 after strong criticism in Turkey itself and abroad, but is still seen as a tool to stifle dissent. Under the amended law, the justice ministry in Ankara will have to decide whether Baransu can be charged. Critics say authorities in Turkey are much too restrictive when it comes to media outlets that challenge official views on such sensitive issues as the political power of the military or the Kurdish conflict. After the monthly bans were handed down on the two pro-Kurdish newspapers, Reporters Without Borders, an international non-governmental organisation promoting press freedom, called on Turkish courts to "stop harassing news media that cover Kurdish issues from an independent or activist standpoint". Mr Dadge of the International Press Institute said part of the reason why authorities in Turkey were so sensitive to criticism from the media was that the country had no strong tradition of a democratic relationship between authorities and the free media. "Politicians are just not used to being criticised," Mr Dadge said. In that way, Turkey was similar to post-Soviet countries that were also seeing problems with press freedom. But he said he was optimistic that those problems would be solved as democratic reforms are implemented. "Turkey will overcome this. The democratic space will get wider." tseibert@thenational.ae
