The Turkish people must be given the opportunity to participate in elections that are free and fair, with the media being allowed to ensure the public makes an informed decision in presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24, the EU’s Parliament Magazine quoted European Parliament President Antonio Tajani.
“It is important that the media in Turkey provides all necessary information for voters. It is also necessary for the Turkish media to explain exactly who they are working for, whether it is for the Turkish regime or others,” Tajani told the magazine.
Turkey heads to the polls under a state of emergency implemented in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Journalists from media outlets closed under state of emergency decrees continue to face prosecution, conviction and imprisonment, the magazine said.
Last month, the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) called for the postponement of Turkey’s elections, citing the state of emergency. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım quickly responded, saying: “The Parliamentary Assembly should mind its own business.”
Meanwhile on Tuesday, following remarks by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan saying, “If our nation says ‘OK’ [meaning enough], then we will step aside,” T A M A M (OK in Turkish) reached number one in worldwide trends on Twitter.
Close to 500,000 tweets have been posted, including tweets from presidential candidates Muharrem İnce of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Meral Akşener from the İYİ Party. Social media has become one of the most important mediums for Turkish public opinion since the Gezi Park protests of June 2013. According to a Reuters report in June 2017, 60 percent of Turkish citizens do not trust the news media. “Mainstream media is controlled by government mostly,” said the report.
Also on Tuesday, İsmail Saygılı, a concerned citizen, filed a criminal case against Turkey’s public broadcaster, TRT, over the lack of coverage of İnce and Akşener’s election campaigns, the Sözcü daily reported.
“As a citizen, I am being deprived of my rights because of TRT’s choice to not cover presidential candidates’ meetings and press conferences,” Saygılı said in his petition.
The CHP’s İnce also warned TRT for the same reason, saying, “TRT belongs to 80 million citizens,” during a rally in Ankara. According to Odatv, TRT broadcast six minutes of İnce’s press conference on Tuesday during a visit by the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş) after being pressured by the opposition.
In March 2017, pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Saruhan Oluç sent a petition to Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) complaining about TRT’s embargo of her party. Oluç showed that in addition to not broadcasting any HDP news, TRT had allocated 1,390 minutes to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 2,723 minutes to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), 216 minutes to the CHP and 48 minutes to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) between March 1 and 22, 2017.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday. If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 254 journalists and media workers were in jail as of May 3, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 192 were under arrest pending trial while only 62 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 142 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/ep-president-tajani-calls-for-fair-and-free-elections-in-turkey/
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