Turkey’s opposition cries foul, over and over again, to no avail these days. Despite its attempts in parliament, the ruling AKP and its ally, extreme-nationalist MHP stood firm in their defence of the release of some 90,000 inmates, mostly common criminals, while keeping about 50,000 political prisoners behind bars.
Sheer populism is behind the stance of the AKP and MHP. Both of these two parties’ motive is to appease their own voter base. Political prisoners are part of the opposition that Turkish rulers are resolved to crush and silence. They see the political prisoners as deserving to stay locked up.
Soon, after the bill passes, these detainees will also be also deprived from reading the opposition newspaper.
But there is more brewing beneath the cunning calculations. As the fog of the COVID-19 pandemic thickens in Turkey, authorities are manipulating the data. COVID-19 deaths are being listed as caused by other sicknesses, such as pneumonia, according to the independent Turkish Medical Association (TTB). The union’s internal network believes the daily death figures may be running higher than two-digit levels.
No surprise. In Turkey, the management of any crisis — or disaster — has always taken second seat to cover ups. This is happening even more so now that the AKP is doing all it can to control the flow of information.
There is even more. In the midst of social mistrust and despair, it was revealed that the Erdogan regime had discreetly added a draft provision into an omnibus bill aimed at establishing massive restrictions on the flow of information and freedom of speech in social media.
According to Reuters, the government “will require foreign social media companies with high internet traffic to appoint a representative in the country to address concerns raised by authorities over content on their platforms. Companies that do not comply with the new measure could face the prospect of having their bandwidth halved within 30 days by court order, and then slashed by 95% if they hold out another 30 days.”
The move follows an intense crackdown on social media during the rise of the pandemic. The Interior Ministry has been keeping busy trying “to restore order” in the dynamic internet domain: In the past two weeks, nearly 4,000 social media accounts were monitored, leading to police raids on the homes of more than 600 “suspects” and detention of 229 citizens for “provocative” posts.
Twitter figures show that Turkey is one of the top two countries in the world where related court orders were issued in the first half of last year.
The draft bill is to be discussed and voted in the coming days. Given the domination of AKP-MHP alliance in Parliament, it is expected that it will tighten the noose further on the free word, as if the current censorship regime was not enough.
The intent is to intensify the pressure on the social media giants — Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Skype, Zoom, Instagram and even WhatsApp. Companies will need to meet demands from authorities about content within three days, then compile and notify officials of all removed or blocked content within a three-month period, according to the draft law.
That’s not all, as the companies will also have to store data that include the identity of users within the country.
If they don’t abide by the rules, companies will be fined with up to 1 million lira ($148,000) for each violation, while those who do not register the removed or blocked content or do not store data in Turkey will be fined up to 5 million lira ($736,000), the reports say.
“It’s beyond comprehension,” said Ozgur Ozel, an MP of the main opposition party, the CHP. “In these outbreak times, no other government manipulates its people. It is sheer opportunism which tells us about its paranoia.”
The government’s intent is to force the social media giants to appoint representatives in Turkey. If they don’t, up to 95 % of their content will be blocked. It will mean a massive throttling of the traffic, putting the companies in a critical situation. If they do, they will be serving an Orwellian regime and censoring the free flow of views and data. What’s worse is that any appeals process is at best protracted in Turkey. The Supreme Court’s decisions in these cases take years.
Critics raise their voices, as does the political opposition. But they fall on deaf ears since 95% of Turkish media do not report their views. This and the global turmoil offer the Erdogan regime, it seems, another “divine gift” delivered on a golden plate to further cement a Central Asian style authoritarian rule of which “digital policing” is a vital component.
Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.
Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 15 April 2020
Word Count: 775
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