14 articles of the 40-article bill passed in Parliament last week amid protests and widespread concerns of censorship

 

YILDIZ YAZICIOĞLU - ANKARA

 

A 40-article bill introducing sweeping changes to the Press Law, Internet Law and other legislation, denounced by the opposition and journalists' organizations as "censorship law," was submitted to Parliament's General Assembly on 4 October. 14 articles of the bill, jointly drafted by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), have already been passed amid protests while the rest are expected to be enacted as early as this week, after General Assembly debates resume on Tuesday, 11 October. 

 

According to the opposition parties, journalists' organizations and lawyers, what the AKP-MHP partnership aims with this bill is to make the crucial 2023 election, which is set to shape the second century of the Republic of Turkey, less of a democratic race.

 

The bill which was brought before the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) on 26 May 2022 with the support of MPs from the two parties and is claimed to target “disinformation” has been met with a first of its kind joint objection from national and local press organizations as it contains many provisions to the detriment of freedoms. While every organization voiced its objections from its own perspective and called for amendments during the debates on the proposal at the parliamentary Digital Media Commission and Justice Commission, the calls were rejected by the AKP-MHP partnership. Journalists’ organizations have taken to the streets to warn against the wholescale destruction of the freedom of communication, including through restrictions on the use of social media and messaging applications. The opposition parties with parliamentary groups, namely the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and İyi Party proposed amendments to the bill in line with opinions to be obtained from journalists’ organizations. However, none of the objections, warnings or calls sufficed to persuade the AKP and the MHP alliance to engage in democratic negotiation and, with the start of the new legislative year on 1 October, Parliament started debating the censorship law as its top agenda item.

 

With the AKP and MHP not giving up on any aspect of the bill that they intend to pass through the General Assembly of the TBMM this week, journalists’ organizations made their voices heard once more before the General Assembly convened. Uniting under the name Media Solidarity Group, journalists’ organizations issued a joint statement in which they signaled that the bill is not an issue of freedom for journalists alone but society at large. The joint statement read: “We say ‘no’ to legislation that will allow for state institutions to wrap themselves around all sources of communication of the public like an octopus to strangle them or let them loose as they please. If this law is implemented as is, there will be great pressure and a state of siege imposed on the freedom of the press, expression and communication in Turkey. The siege and pressure of censorship will apply not only to the press, but to society.”

 

In their joint statement, journalists’ organizations emphasised the risks of defining a new crime under the Turkish Penal Code (TPC) in the form of “publicly dissemination information that is deceiving to the public” should the proposal become law. Stating that all critical opinions could be punished on the pretext of vaguely defined concepts of national security, public order and general health, journalists’ organizations warned “We will come across many practices that will rock and collapse democracy and the principle of freedom of the press.”

 

Behind-the-scenes architect of the law Altun: “A cyber war for the homeland”

 

Director of Communications of the Presidency Fahrettin Altun is seen as the behind-the-scenes architect of the bill, which is expected to become a tool for punishment of the media and opposition groups, especially during the election process. Speaking at a symposium in Ankara on the day the debate on the proposal started at the General Assembly of Parliament, Altun argued that the government was “engaged in a struggle for sovereignty in the cyber world.”

 

Altun stated that they had been engaged in the “communication mobilisation” called for by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and said, “It is neither a choice for the state to take measures for possible crimes emerging on visual and audio media nor a mechanism to control society. On the contrary, it is the state’s responsibility towards its citizens. It is not an option, but a requirement for the public authority to reflect and seek regulations about this issue. Working for a safer media is in fact part of our struggle for the truth. As the President has himself pointed out, combating the terrorism of lies managed from home and abroad is a significant pillar of Turkey’s communication model.” In justification Altun said, “Disinformation, black propaganda, fifth column activities, cyber-attacks and terrorist organizations’ activities in digital space continue unabated throughout the media and the cyber world. The target is sometimes states, politicians or public organizations and institutions or their administrators.”

 

Altun defended the current proposal and the regulation on social media which came into effect at the end of 2020 as “bringing social media platforms under the legal framework” and said, “It is with this understanding that we define the digital world as the ‘cyber homeland.’ Just as we fight for sovereignty in real the world, we also fight for sovereignty in the cyber world. Just as we see security concerns in the real world as essential and combat them, we also see security concerns in the cyber world as essential. We see cybersecurity as a part of our national security and assess cybercrimes as fundamental elements to be combated. We try our best to protect our cyber homeland and cyber sovereignty.”

 

Accusations of “global power, imperialist, embezzler, apparatus”

 

MHP Vice Chair Feti Yıldız spoke during the General Assembly debate on the proposal in the evening of 4 October and slammed those who criticising the proposal as “the censorship law.” As the first signatory and thus the sponsor of the proposal, Yıldız said, “We know very well those who stand by social media ethics established by imperialism. We know the collaborationists of perception operations against our country, of those conspiracies designed against our nation. We know the station chiefs of America who pursue low-cost coups all around the world. We know those who demand that global powers intervene in our politics. We know the international organizations failing to provide solutions to any problems. We know those who shouted slogans for labour and freedom while embezzling hundreds of thousands of liras a month from fake newspapers. We know the media organizations funded from abroad on the condition of reporting against the government. We know those who shouted slogans at parliamentary group meetings, just as İbrahim Temo did. We know that the left has been bought out by capitalism and is no longer taken seriously in the world. We know the politicians whose every claim is done away with before sun goes down. We know the lie-manufacturers hiding behind the mask of civil society organizations. We know the new supporters of foreign mandate who have aspirations against our independence.”

 

Yıldız added that they [knew] those who claimed freedoms would be restricted with this law, the press would be censored, everyone reporting and writing news would stand before a judge, even the elections would be imperilled and defended that defining the crime of “publicly disseminating erroneous information” was the most fundamental principle in combating disinformation. Yıldız denied criticisms that the law would be used for harming the election process and for filing lawsuits against journalists and the public.

 

“There are no risks to the freedom of the press, the crime is foreseen for tangible risks”

 

Despite having participated in the preparatory work on the bill and having embraced a positive stance towards it, the AKP Group Deputy Chairman Mahir Ünal did not sign the proposal. For this reason, the first signatory for the AKP was MP for Kahramanmaraş Ahmet Özdemir. Özdemir spoke at the General Assembly talks and denied criticisms that the bill would lead to imprisonment sentences for journalists and public advertisement bans for newspapers, thereby imposing multi-dimensional pressure on the opposition media.

 

Özdemir said, “We also want the press to be free. We also are not in favour of journalists being subject to sanctions because of reporting news. However, Article 29 has nothing to do with journalists. Why would a journalist reporting in Turkey knowingly and willingly disseminate fake news, why would they harm their own reputation? They may do it once or twice. When they do it for the third time, when they turn into a well-known fake-news-journalist, people would no longer read or follow them. Therefore, journalists facing persecution for this crime is technically impossible.”

 

Özdemir stated that “this crime targets tangible risk” and asserted that one might face punishment not because of what they said but in case their statement causes a social uproar. Özdemir also claimed that they have been studying examples from the world for digital media with the responsibility of a governing party and doing their best and said of the criticisms, “After two years of work, there have been only complaints. They say, ‘Do not touch my social media!’, ‘Free press shall not be silenced!’ These are nice expressions, but they are empty.”

 

CHP, HDP and İyi Party to vote against

 

Journalists at the press section of parliament protested the start of the debate on “the censorship law” in the General Assembly by wearing black masks. Meanwhile, CHP deputies in the chamber supported journalists by displaying placards reading “No to the censorship law,” “We want freedom of expression and the press,” “Drop the unconstitutional proposal,” “Who decides what is fake news?” Deputies turned their backs to the Speaker of the House’s stand and applauded journalists at the press section.

 

Members of parliament from opposition parties repeated their objections to the bill on the first day of the General Assembly debate.

 

In response to the AKP’s claims that this law would protect Turkey and democracy, former journalist and CHP MP for İzmir Tuncay Özkan said, “You cannot protect democracy with a stick. You protect democracy with freedom, you protect democracy by elating the Republic and the public. Journalists are not responsible to the state. Journalists are not responsible to political parties; they are only responsible to the public. Journalists depend on the truth, and they are faithful to the truth.”

Co-Vice Chair of the HDP Tayip Temel who spoke for his party said, “The governing party talks about disinformation, deception, distortion, defamation and personal rights when defending this law or presenting it to the public; they think that nobody will object to it when they present such a law that is intended to suffocate society under this mask. Now, they target social media platforms, which are used by large segments of society, they make enemies of these platforms. This is certainly not a new situation. The governing party has previously tried to make a bed of roses for itself without thorns, in particular it attacked opposition voices. During the construction of the oppressive regime, they targeted opposition media, they had called it a ‘coup,’ ‘violence,’ ‘manipulation,’ they criminalised everyone who did not think like them, did not serve them, did not obey them and objected their policies; they made enemies out of them. They want to give no one the right to live, they begrudge society the right to think and to express its thoughts. They would say, ‘We think on behalf of you, we explain. You just repeat what we said’.”

 

Group Deputy Chair for İyi Party Müsavat Dervişoğlu said, “We will oppose this AKP formation law, which was dictated to Parliament and is called ‘disinformation law’ till the end and we will say no.”

 

“The greatest obstacle to the freedom of the press, expression and information”

 

The joint statement by the Media Solidarity Group consisting of the Press Council, the Contemporary Journalists Association (ÇGD), Diplomacy Reporters Association (DMD), Economy Reporters Association, Association of Journalists, Haber-Sen, İzmir Association of Journalists, Parliament Reporters Association (PMD), Turkey Photo-Reporters Association (TFMD) and the Journalists Union of Turkey emphasised that the proposal becoming law would be “the largest obstacle to the freedom of expression.”

 

The statement underlined that the proposal would define a new crime of “publicly disseminating information that is deceiving to the public” under Article 29 and evaluated the proposed new criminal definition as follows: “It would be impossible to know which prosecutor would take action against which persons for disseminated wrong information due to ambiguous and open-ended statements. Critical posts on social media could be seen as constituting ‘disinformation.’ By referring to the ‘disseminator’ of the news along with the producer of fake news, the proposal will lead to many practices which will collapse democracy and the freedom of expression from their foundations.”

 

The statement also underlined that along with the definition of this new type of crime, there will be interventions against interpersonal communication through the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK). The statement reads, “Social media posts will be subject to hefty penalties. Anonymous and instant messaging applications will convey information on calls and messages to the BTK. The BTK will bring the strictest supervision and the threat of penalties to communications applications such as WhatsApp. Administrative fines of TL 30 million and reduction of bandwidths by 95 per cent, which is essentially shutting down the application, may be imposed on social media companies who refuse the heavy obligations such as providing information on use or taking action on accounts that are allegedly used to commit crimes.”

 

 

 

 

“Local newspapers will suffer a heavy blow; news websites will be punished”

 

Journalists’ organizations stated that the proposal would grant the status of “journalist” to people who work for news websites and although this was a marginally positive development, the proposal also brought along heavy sanctions. Journalists’ organizations emphasised that the proposal would affect the income for announcements distributed to newspapers by the Press Announcement Institution (BİK). In their joint statement, journalists’ organizations said, “Income from official announcements, which is the lifeblood of local newspapers, will be reduced by 75%. If local newspapers receive this blow, approximately 8,000 of our colleagues will face the risk of unemployment. With news websites included in the BİK pool, the share received from total public ads will fall, as no new resources are added to the pool. Out of 953 newspapers that hold the right to publish official announcements, 30 are mainstream newspapers and the rest are local newspapers. Considering the newspapers expecting to receive the right to publish official announcements, there is a risk of significant loss of income for approximately 1,000 newspapers.”

 

The statement also stated that BİK was already unfairly distributing public ads among newspapers and was punishing opposition media and added that with the current proposal “BİK will be equipped with great authority to impose both monetary and administrative fines on newspapers and news websites. Just as RTÜK is the Damocles’ sword hanging over television and radio channels, BİK will become ‘the police with a gun’ for written and digital media.”

 

The statement also included concerns over the new powers given to the Directorate of Communication of the Presidency regarding press cards. The statement emphasised that with the proposal becoming law, members of the Press Card Commission who play a significant role in the process of issuing press cards, would be assigned by the Director of Communications of the Presidency. The statement added that the proposal would also lead to terminating ongoing lawsuits at the Council of State regarding the Regulation on Press Cards.

 

 

You may view the joint bill of the AKP and MHP at https://www2.tbmm.gov.tr/d27/2/2-4471.pdf (in Turkish). For detailed information on the parliamentary commission stages of the proposal, please view https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/Yasama/KanunTeklifi/316898 (in Turkish).