Turkish President Claims Jailed Journalists Are Actually Terrorists

from the wobbles-so-much-you-can't-even-call-it-'spin' dept

Turkish president Recep Erdogan is at it again. Not content to merely be viewed as a megalomaniacal, ring-coveting authoritarian, Erdogan is using his time in mixed company to assure the world he's angling for the title of "tyrant."

Erdogan's long history of abusing laws to shut critics up has been covered extensively here. He's gone from a comical but dangerous politician to the leading abuser of his own constituents in record time. When not attempting to push foreign countries to play by his censorship rules, Erdogan is locking up dissidents and journalists at an alarming rate.

Of course, they're not journalists… at least not when Erdogan's telling the story. While speaking at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York City, the Turkish president had this to say about the journalists in his country's jails.

You have been misled, Erdogan told Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, who interviewed him on stage. "The ones who have been sentenced, who have been imprisoned, are not journalists. Most of them are terrorists."

Define "terrorist." In the wrong hands/minds, the word "terrorist" could be used to describe anyone threatening to the party in power, even if nothing more dangerous than words or thoughts have been deployed. I have no doubt Erdogan believes journalists are terrorists, even if they've never done anything more than criticize him and his policies.

But Erdogan at least went into a little more detail about this claim. He explained the vast amount of terrorism participated in by the terrornalists he's tossed in his jails.

"Many have been involved in burglaries and some have been caught red handed as they were trying to empty ATM machines."

Odd. That sounds more like normal criminal activity. It does not sound like terrorism. I realize terrorists need to fund their activities, but this doesn't sound like terrorist acts. This sounds like bog standard theft.

So, these journalists Erdogan calls "terrorists" (because of their alleged burglaries) remain in jail. There's at least 150 still imprisoned, according to the Quartz article. But that's not the limit of Erdogan's abuse of the press. Erdogan shut down hundreds of media outlets in an initial assault on the press, following it up with mass arrests. A few thousand journalist were swept up by Erdogan's post-coup-attempt purge, most of whom ended up with no place to work and no press credentials to use.

After this, Erdogan went on to make many more counterfactual statements, including claiming he doesn't take proactive steps to stifle criticism and spinning the beatings handed out by his bodyguards during his visit to the White House as an all-out assault by crazed anti-Turkey Americans while US law enforcement officers stood idly by.

These are all hallmarks of a sociopathic authoritarian -- the type of person who always believes they're right even when the rest of the world agrees they're wrong. His sweeping away of facts with provably untrue statements shows he really doesn't care if anyone believes him, but will still do everything in his power to make sure those that don't believe can't be heard.

Filed Under: authoritarian, dictator, free speech, gollum, journalists, recep tayyip erdogan, terrorism, turkey

Guy Who Passed Around Image Of Turkish President As Gollum Given Suspended Sentence, Loses Custody Of His Kids

from the it's-not-even-gollum dept

Remember this image? That's the meme that was (and still is) passed around on social media (rather gently) mocking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for looking kinda like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or, not even Gollum, but his nicer alter ego, Smeagol. Last we wrote about this, a Turkish court was assembling an expert panel to determine if that image is insulting to Erdogan. Since then, of course, we've learned just how insanely thin-skinned Erdogan is, having filed an average of over 100 actions against people for insulting him per month (how does he get any actual work done?).

The Gollum case, however, is partially done, with one person accused of passing around the meme, Rifat Cetin, given a 1 year jail sentence, but having it suspended for five years -- meaning if he breaks no other laws in the next five years, he won't have to go to jail. He does, however, lose custody of his kids, which seems pretty damn harsh for sending around a simple (and not very insulting) internet meme. And this is actually a different case than the one we discussed earlier -- it's just that there were multiple lawsuits over the same image.

Cetin is going to appeal, not on the basis of "WTF, I don't even..." which should be the standard here, but on the technicality that Erdogan was actually Prime Minister at the time the image was posted, rather than President -- and the law is only against insulting the President.

Either way, all this has done, of course, is get more people to post and share that image over and over and over again. You'd think that "growing a thicker skin" might be a better overall strategy. But, then again, I'm not the President of Turkey, so what do I know?

Filed Under: gollum, insults, recep tayyip erdogan, rifat cetin, smeagol, thin skin, turkey

Turkish Court Establishes A Special 'Expert Panel' To Determine If Comparing Prime Minister To Gollum Is An Insult

from the what-about-mocking-the-whole-thing? dept

The government of Turkey has a really... weird relationship with the internet. The government seems quite quick to attack internet services and to shut them down if anyone says anything even mildly critical of the government. Starting about six years ago, we noted that Turkey would do things like banning all of YouTube or Blogger to try to block a single mocking or critical video or blog post. These bans seemed to come and go -- sometimes leading the actual citizens of Turkey to protest the outright censorship of useful services. In the last couple of years, things have ramped up a bit. An attempt to block a single blog post resulted in 60 million Wordpress sites being blocked. Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan at one point ordered a ban on all of Twitter... even filing a lawsuit against his own government over this. There have also been attempts to ban Facebook. Oh, and Minecraft. In fact, just the other day the European Court of Human Rights said that Turkey's earlier YouTube ban violated freedom of expression in Turkey.

Indeed, that's pretty clearly the point. The Turkish government, and Erdogan in particular, don't want freedom of expression. Almost all of this stems from people posting jokes or mocking content about the government -- and Erdogan in particular. Erdogan seems to have incredibly thin skin for a ruler of a major country. But even with all of that as background, the latest story out of Turkey is super weird. A Turkish physician, Bilgin Ciftci, is in court for potentially insulting Erdogan via social media for sharing this image on social media: On the right are three photos of Erdogan. On the left? Of course, that's Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies. In other words, it's a silly social media joke, the kind you see all the time. Except Erdogan got offended and now Ciftci faces up to two years in jail. Except, making the situation even more bizarre, the judge in the case can't decide if comparing someone to Gollum is an insult, so he's establishing a special expert panel to determine whether or not the image is an insult:

The court ordered that the investigation be conducted by a group composed of two academics, two behavioral scientists or psychologists and an expert on cinema and television productions.

The chief judge gave the decision after Hicran Danisman, a lawyer representing Ciftci, asked him whether or not he had seen the movie series “The Lord of the Rings.” Saying that he had seen only seen parts of them, the chief judge postponed the hearing until Feb. 13, 2016. Danisman stated in a previous hearing that neither the prosecutor nor the chief judge had seen the movies, even though the character of Gollum was at the center of the case.
Ciftci claimed that Gollum was not a bad character and that he did not insult anyone.

I'm not sure I'd agree that Gollum "was not a bad character," but this is a joke on the internet. What kind of President gets upset about that? Ciftci, for his part, seems to recognize how ridiculous this is:

The 47-year-old doctor told The Independent that he was “very surprised” when he learned he would be prosecuted. The case, he said, showed that Turkey was going through “a very difficult time.” Asked if he regretted sharing the images, he said: "I see it as a question of freedom of speech and of humour. I don't think I've done anything to regret."

Maybe Turkey should just ban the internet from Erdogan's home and office.

In the meantime, of course, what's happening is that this silly jokey picture that Erdogan is apparently so offended by is getting shared absolutely everywhere, because what better way to point out how ridiculous it is to try to censor this image than to make sure it's seen by just about everyone. One wonders if Erdogan knows or cares about this -- or if he's just trying to create a chilling effect for others in the future. Still, if he wanted to cement his reputation as being particularly thin-skinned about public commentary and criticism, it's difficult to think of a better way to do so.

Filed Under: bilgin ciftci, chilling effect, free speech, gollum, insult, joke, recep tayyip erdogan, turkey