Messenger comes under attack

Many sections of Turkish media critical of the government say Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is bent on silencing them through intimidation -- or controlling them through purchase. At stake is the very existence of an independent media that stands out as a rare bastion still beyond the grasp of Erdogan's Islamic-rooted ruling party. Earlier this year the once critical Sabah group of publications was bought over by a group of investors with Islamic leanings. The group is close to Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP). The sale, at a price of about a billion dollars, included the daily Sabah (circulation 400,000), the second largest national private television network ATV, and several periodicals. The Star, a daily with a circulation of about 100,000, was sold earlier to another group with similar ideology. The Star, too, had been critical of the government. The buyouts have boosted Turkey's steadily growing "religious media" that included already the mass circulation daily Zaman (over 500,000 copies), and a host of smaller newspapers and private television stations. But the biggest group is still holding out -- the Dogan empire with six national dailies including the number one Posta (circulation 600,000), two top TV networks including the all-news CNN Turk, and a group of periodicals. All of these pursue a secular agenda. Now it's open warfare between Erdogan and Aydin Dogan, the billionaire mogul who owns much of this group. Erdogan, as controversial as he is popular, was irked by the saturation news coverage in Dogan outlets of the trial in Germany of a Turkish-run charitable foundation accused of fraud and embezzling funds from Turkish workers. The group was accused of siphoning 17 million euro to media and others close to the ruling party in Turkey. Members of the foundation were eventually found guilty. The case came within weeks of the resignation of a deputy leader of the AKP over opposition-led allegations, also widely reported by the Dogan media, of bribery in a real estate transaction. The Prime Minister, who shot to power six years ago on an anti-corruption platform, publicly accused Dogan of orchestrating a media campaign against him as revenge for his failure to obtain preferential treatment from the government for his other business interests, mainly in real estate. Denying the accusations, Dogan said Erdogan was trying to muzzle the independent media. Editor Sedat Ergin of the Dogan-owned daily Milliyet editorialised last week: "What were we supposed to do? Not cover a major law case?" Chief columnist Yusuf Kanli of the Turkish Daily News, a Dogan publication, warned of a "tyranny of the majority." Pro-government media mainly confined itself to reporting the public ping-pong between the Prime Minister and Dogan, arguing both for press freedom and for more responsible journalism. "Erdogan just doesn't like media criticism," Istanbul-based French writer Jerome Bastion, an analyst of Turkish politics for over a decade, told IPS. "He feels he is accountable only to voters. But, as he tries to discredit the critical media, he may also be losing a bit of credibility himself." The International Press Institute, the World Association of Newspapers, and the World Editors Forum told Erdogan in a joint letter that "the state's duty is not to silence critical reports, but to provide the media an environment where it can perform without fear of oppression." The flap is likely to be mentioned in a status report by the European Union next month on Turkey's controversial bid to become the first full Muslim member of the EU. As things stand now, Erdogan and his party control Parliament single-handedly (close to two-thirds of the 550-chamber), have control of the executive branch, and last year gained the presidency, until then confined only to secularists. Among the remaining institutions beyond AKP's control, the academia and the judiciary are still packed with secular appointees of former presidents, but not forever. As time goes by, attrition will mean their replacements will fall on President Abdulah Gul, a founding member of the AKP although his status as head of state now makes him apolitical. Apart from the Dogan group, that leaves the military the sole power still standing independently. The armour is considered untouchable. It has overthrown four elected governments since 1960, two of them for being too Islamist. It has made it known that it will step in if the secular order is threatened. The latest flare-up comes at a time when Erdogan and his party are seen as becoming more ideological and less pragmatic. Buoyed by the overwhelming majority in Parliament, the AKP engineered constitutional amendments lifting the traditional ban on headscarves at universities. The Constitutional Court overturned the amendments earlier this year. In a separate case, the high court declared the AKP anti-secular, but spared it -- by a single vote in the 11-member tribunal–closure, and Erdogan a five-year ban from politics. The Erdogan-Dogan split could be a confined one, since the media, particularly the print media, may matter less than imagined. Turks don't read much, and when they watch TV, it's mainly sports and soap operas. The daily circulation of all 20 major national newspapers is about five million copies a day, in a population of more than 70 million.