{"id":52150,"date":"2012-03-16T12:21:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T10:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=52150"},"modified":"2014-01-07T01:05:27","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T23:05:27","slug":"repression-in-turkey-enemies-of-the-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2012\/03\/16\/repression-in-turkey-enemies-of-the-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Repression in Turkey: Enemies of the state"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Enemies of the state<\/h2>\n<h2>Four journalists are released from prison. Dozens are less lucky<\/h2>\n<p>Mar 17th 2012 | ISTANBUL | from the print edition<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_52153\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52153\" style=\"width: 290px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52153\" title=\"20120317_EUP005_0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/20120317_EUP005_0.jpg\" alt=\"Sener is smiling, but unhappy\" width=\"290\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/20120317_EUP005_0.jpg 290w, https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/20120317_EUP005_0-229x300.jpg 229w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52153\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sener is smiling, but unhappy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cHOW can I be happy when so many of my colleagues are not free?\u201d The question was asked by Nedim Sener, an investigative journalist who this week was freed on bail, along with three other journalists, after spending more than a year in an Istanbul prison on thin charges that he was part of a conspiracy to overthrow Turkey\u2019s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party.<\/p>\n<p>He is right to ask. At least 100 journalists are behind bars in Turkey, more than in any other country. Most are held on terrorism charges. But under Turkey\u2019s nebulous anti-terror laws, even covering a press conference by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy party could get you locked up. The pro-Kurdish DIHA news agency says 27 of its reporters are in jail. Journalists who criticise Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, face the sack at the hands of timid media bosses.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Sener was arrested last year with Ahmet Sik, a journalist who built his career uncovering human-rights abuses. Mr Sener dug into alleged police complicity in the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish newspaper publisher. Both men wrote books that were fiercely critical of Turkey\u2019s most influential Islamic movement, led by Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive imam who lives in America. Many think that under AK rule the \u201cGulenists\u201d have infiltrated Turkey\u2019s police force and judiciary, and the journalists sought to prove this. \u201cThose who touch [the Gulenists] burn!\u201d Mr Sik cried as he was arrested last year.<\/p>\n<p>Pressure from the European Union and various human-rights groups helped secure this week\u2019s releases. And there are encouraging signs that Mr Erdogan may soon resume the reforms which once endeared him to Turkish liberals and his Western friends. These, Mr Sener noted, ought to include dealing with Turkey\u2019s prisons. Hundreds of minors had to be shipped out of one in the southern province of Adana this month following allegations of physical and sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Life was not that bad for Mr Sener, although he did lose 30kg (66lb) inside. It was harder, he said, on his eight-year-old daughter, who was forced to remove her skirt when visiting him (its studs set off a metal detector). Police scoured her school notebooks for \u201cevidence\u201d against her father. \u201cShe kept asking, \u2018Am I a terrorist?\u2019,\u201d Mr Sener said. In the eyes of Turkish prosecutors, she may well be.<\/p>\n<p>via Repression in Turkey: Enemies of the state | The Economist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enemies of the state Four journalists are released from prison. Dozens are less lucky Mar 17th 2012 | ISTANBUL | from the print edition \u201cHOW can I be happy when so many of my colleagues are not free?\u201d The question was asked by Nedim Sener, an investigative journalist who this week was freed on bail, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":52153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[5461,5462],"class_list":["post-52150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-ahmet-sik","tag-nedim-sener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}