Journalist Çağrı Sarı, RSF Turkey representative Erol Önderoğlu and academic Yaman Akdeniz discuss Internet censorship in Turkey

 

 

Expression Interrupted hosted an online panel this week on the growing number of decisions banning access to online news reports or ordering their removal. Speakers Çağrı Sarı, an editor for Evrensel daily, Erol Önderoğlu, the Turkey representative of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and academic Yaman Akdeniz discussed the numbers, trends and consequences associated with Internet censorship, one of the most acute restrictions on media freedom and the public’s right to information in Turkey.

 

 

 

 

Despite a Constitutional Court “pilot judgment” last year, in which the top court ruled that court orders blocking access to online news content were unconstitutional and found that the legislation on which such orders were based should be revised by Parliament, the criminal judgeships of peace continue to rain down decisions on news outlets to ban access to or order removal of their content.  

 

15,832 news pages removed in six years

 

Professor Yaman Akdeniz, the founder of Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) which publishes EngelliWeb online censorship reports, said that between 2007 and the end of 2020, around 437,000 websites were banned in Turkey. This figure went up to about 530,000 as of the end of 2021 and is projected to hit 600,000 by the end of this year. Akdeniz said that an increasing number of news websites began to be banned after an April 2015 amendment to the Law no. 5651, “the Internet Law,” which introduced a new access-blocking procedure on a number of grounds, including the protection of national security and public order. “With the introduction of Article 8(A) in April 2015, access to a number of news websites ranging from sendika.org to Kurdish news websites was blocked,” Akdeniz said of the amendment to the Internet Law. “Jin News website was blocked 53 times over a period of 18 months. It is quite similar to sendika.org, whose website was banned 63 times,” he said.

 

Another amendment introduced to the Internet Law in 2014, which allowed access-blocking on the grounds of “violation of personal rights” is another key source of censorship decisions, according to Akdeniz. Under Article 9 of the Internet Law, which concerns protection of personal rights, access to a total of 22,554 news pages was banned between 2014 and the end of 2020, as a result of 5,136 decisions issued by 468 different criminal judgeships of peace. An additional 15,832 news URLs were removed or deleted.

 

Akdeniz said the number of news URLs deleted or removed was set to increase significantly in 2021, as a result of another set of amendments to the Internet Law dated July 2020 that allow the criminal judgeships of peace to remove news content on the ground of “protection of personal rights.”

 

“This means that censorship becomes successful. Because when a news article is deleted or removed, it means it effectively disappears,” he said.

 

According to Akdeniz, in the run-up to the elections slated for 2023 and with the anticipated enactment of the “anti-disinformation law” soon, the figures pertaining to Internet censorship are set to increase.

 

“Fate of news archives on the line”

 

Akdeniz emphasized that the content removal practices posed an existential threat to news archives and that the abuse of the right to be forgotten exacerbated the situation as well. “Access-blocking or content removal decisions do not only apply to current news. With the introduction of the right to be forgotten, we see that some news articles dating back to the early 2000s are being removed. Technologies like VPN used to help us access the information that existed online but was inaccessible to us. But it is not possible to access something that does not exist,” Akdeniz said, adding that it was crucial that the news outlets preserve digital archives even when they were forced to take down their content.  

 

News websites could face severe fines and criminal investigations if they refuse to immediately abide by a criminal judgeship of peace order to take down content, Akdeniz noted, adding that it was also essential to report on court orders banning access to news stories and file legal objections against such orders even though they end up being only “symbolic.”

 

“When news websites are faced with access-blocking decisions, they end up self-censoring if they also remove the content concerned. But if they don’t, they may face possible fines or investigations. Still, there is something that can be done: As part of the EngelliWeb project, when there is a decision that blocks access to a news report that we think pertains to a matter of public interest, we report on that decision in both on our website and Twitter account. But we receive access-blocking or content removal orders for sharing this. We file objections but they all end up getting dismissed. Then we take them to the Constitutional Court and wait for years for a judgment. But these decisions should be appealed, even if it is only symbolic. The purpose is not to win, but to make sure they are recorded in history. Because the Constitutional Court writes about the blocked content when it issues its judgments,” he said.

 

Constitutional Court judgment

 

Akdeniz also touched on the recent Constitutional Court pilot judgment that found that Article 9 of the Internet Law was against the Constitution. He criticized the Court for selecting nine applications that are politically “unobjectionable” out of the hundreds pending before itself and sending the ball to Parliament for at least a year.

 

The judgment, which was a response to nine applications separately filed but merged together by the Constitutional Court, established that since the violation stemmed from Article 9, it should be revised by Parliament. The top court gave Parliament a year to do so, during which it would suspend reviewing similar pending applications.

 

“The Constitutional Court acted strategically by both making a progressive decision and removing itself from solution efforts. This judgment confirms that there will be no solution to this problem in the run-up to the elections,” he said, asking “if the Constitutional Court is convinced that the violations are caused by the legislation, then why would it not rule on the pending applications as well?”

 

“Important issues made invisible to the public”

 

RSF Turkey representative Erol Önderoğlu said in his remarks that non-independent courts lie at the heart of Internet censorship in Turkey. “The missions undertaken by the courts is in clear conflict with the journalism’s mission to inform the public,” Önderoğlu said, noting that the public was deprived of vital information as censorship spread.

 

“When you are online, you don’t know what you are missing. You can only see what is made available to you. It is crucial that the citizens realize this,” he said. “In a society where the issues of corruption, favoritism, religious exploitation or sexual abuse are not visible, it would not be possible to have a healthy dialogue and exchange of information.”

 

Sharing latest RSF figures on restrictions imposed on the work of journalists and the social media posts linked to news reports, Önderoğlu said 975 news pages were blocked in 2021 alone. “Those who wrote the stories that were banned are journalists who represent the investigative force of the society,” he said. “Therefore, we are in a situation where the targets are selected very carefully and specific measures are taken to make sure whatever those journalists deem to be significant be made invisible to the public.”

 

Pointing out that there is a very rich institutional structure in Turkey for seeking restitution, Önderoğlu said, “In terms of the institutional structure, it seems as if Turkey is a country where a democratic process of seeking redress for violations of rights can function. But the fact that the judiciary is not de facto independent and systematically violates fundamental freedoms under political instructions is a big problem," he said.

 

Noting that international journalism and freedom of expression delegations could not get an appointment with members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Ankara, Önderoğlu continued: “For example, we could not get an appointment from the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Justice for the first time in October 2021. Whenever we try to contact AKP and MHP deputies, including the Digital Rights Commission in Parliament, we either get no response or a refusal. A similar approach comes from the members of the ruling parties in [broadcasting watchdog] RTÜK.”

 

“Censorship transformed”

 

Çağrı Sarı, an editor in one of the most heavily censored newspapers, Evrensel, gave numerous examples of news reports touching on sensitive political issues that were ordered to be blocked or removed. Noting that the blocked content consisted of news reports vital to informing the public, Sarı asked: “If we are not to report on these, then what are we supposed to write about?”

 

Stating that the media in Turkey was always subject to restrictions and pressure, Sarı said, however, that it became more palpable with the transition from the parliamentary system to the “one-man regime.” She said: “We see the reflection of this in the media sector. We came from a time in the 90s when journalists were killed in broad daylight. When we look at it from today's point of view, after 2016, we see the censorship changed its form and now everything is forbidden. We will go through a much harder process as we go to the elections. Perhaps we won’t even have a newspaper to publish. I speak in a bit exaggerated terms so everyone can understand the gravity of the situation.”

 

Sarı continued: “We all became lawyers as a result of researching ways to continue reporting by preserving the facts without putting ourselves at risk. But we all should be able to access the news without VPN and without editorial tricks. This system itself is censorship. We have to fight against it.”

 

Underlining the risks of blocking access and content removal in terms of societal memory, she said: “People who will become journalists 20 years from now will not know about what is happening today. There is the risk of a generation that does not know its past.”