Posted on 09/21/2017 3:52:00 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
On April 29, the Turkish government announced that it completely blocked Wikipedia over the online encyclopedia’s refusal to delete articles and comments that suggest that Ankara is co-operating with terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
Despite multiple requests by Turkish officials, Wikipedia refused to take down the content the Turkish government objected to. In response, Turkish authorities blocked online access to Wikipedia in all languages across the country.
Wikipedia continues to be blocked in Turkey. But it is not the only restricted website in the country. An estimated 127,000-plus websites have been blocked in Turkey, along with another 95,000 individual Web pages.
These bans were apparently inspired by the “glorious” history of the Ottoman Empire, which in 1515 imposed the death penalty on anyone using a printing press to print books in Turkish or Arabic. The ban remained enforced for the next 270 years.
That prohibition is widely cited by historians as one of the major reasons for the intellectual and scientific collapse of Islam at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Ironically, because of that ban, the first books to be published in the Ottoman Empire were in Hebrew in the city of Safad (now located in northern Israel).
Scholar Theo Pavlidis wrote,
The printing press had been invented by Gutenberg around the time of the fall of Constantinople. It did not go unnoticed in Ottoman lands, but this invention of the devil (as religious leaders claimed) was banned by a decree issued by Bayazid II in 1485. However, a Jewish press was approved about 20 years later on the condition it prints only texts in the Hebrew alphabet. An Armenian press was approved in 1567 and a Greek one in 1627, each limited to the respective alphabets. Printing of Arabic characters was considered sacrilegious and it was not permitted. It was only in 1727, almost 300 years after the invention of the printing press, that printing in Turkish with Arabic characters was allowed.
The culture of censorship or prohibitions continued even after the new Turkish regime was established in the 20th century. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) founded the Turkish republic in 1923 and ruled it until 1950 without free elections. It enacted the Law on the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükûn Kanunu) in 1925 and the press law (Matbuat Kanunu) in 1931.
Based on these laws, the first Turkish government closed down or censored several newspapers, magazines and journals with different political inclinations across Turkey. It also banned many foreign newspapers and magazines from entering the country.
During the rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s first president, at least 130 newspapers, magazines and books were banned, according to Mustafa Yılmaz and Yasemin Doğaner’s book Censor During the Republican Era (1923–1973), which was published in 2007.
During the rule of Adnan Menderes, Turkey’s second prime minister (1950–1960, from the Democrat Party), 161 were banned.
So it would not be wrong to say that ever since its founding, Turkey has never had freedom of the press. But according to historian and professor Mete Tuncay, the situation is even grimmer than that: “It is not enough to say that there was no freedom of the press in that [one-party] era,” Tuncay wrote in his 2005 book Critical Writings on History.
“In the Ottoman autocracy, too, the press was not able to write what the government did not want. In the one-party era [during the CHP administration of republican Turkey between 1923 and 1950], however, the press could write only what the government wanted it to write.”
But it is not only the works of others that the Turkish government has been trying to ban or censor. The archives and many documents of several state institutions have also been disposed of by authorities. Historian Rıfat Bali explained the history of disposed or destroyed state archives in his 2014 book The Story of Destruction and Plundering: Printed or Written Works, Dead Letters, Archives Thrown Out (or Sold) for Scrap.
In an interview with the newspaper Hürriyet, Bali said, “It is impossible to write the entire history of Turkey because the archives that would make us understand this history have been plundered.”
The archives of many political parties, the Senate, and several other governmental or non-governmental institutions in Turkey are either closed to public use or no longer exist.
Bali added,
The archives of the political parties closed down during the September 12, 1980 coup d’état were sent to SEKA (Selüloz ve Kâğit Fabrikalari, or Cellulose and Paper Factories) as scrap paper. The military authorities must have said, “We have closed down the political parties; let us destroy their everything so that they will erased be from memories.” But even if you have such a mentality, you need to have some mercy. You are at the top of a nation and a state and you try to destroy a part of the history of that state. You play God. This is like genocide.
The most important archive is the archive of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) because it is the archive of the founding years and consolidation years of the republic. Everyone wants to see it. Some say, “It was burnt.” Some say, “It was thrown away on September 12.” Some say, “No, it hasn’t been thrown away. It is here.” So it is a mystery today. A large part of the archive is nonexistent. And the first time the archives of the CHP were discussed was in 1986. Before that, no one had asked where it was.
Bali additionally noted that some of the most important state archives are also closed to public in Turkey: “The archives of the Turkish presidency are closed. And there is no such case in anywhere else in the world. Even the archives of the CIA and the FBI are open. Of course, objectionable documents are not made public. But they are not fully closed. In Turkey, the archives of the presidency, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the Ministry of the Interior are closed.”
Bali has also told the strange story of how some documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ended up with a scrap dealer in Ankara:
“Confidential documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were found at a scrap dealer in Ankara in 1998. For the ministry had sold 15 steel safes to a scrap dealer. It was then understood that the ministry sold the safes because of a lack of space at the ministry without even looking what was inside them.”
Some other examples that Bali detailed in his book include:
Sadly, important works are still not sufficiently preserved in Turkey, as Bali pointed out: “At the end of [2013], very old books in Turkish, Greek, Hebrew and Syriac at Turkey’s National Library in Ankara were sold by the ton, as there were no librarians who could read in those languages.”
Bali said that Turkey has not preserved its archives because archives equal information. According to him, the disposal of archives and historic documents “are natural outcomes in a country that does not value information. When information does not bring money, archives are thrown into trash bins.”
In countries where knowledge is not valued, cultural and intellectual advancement becomes difficult, if not impossible. Instead, authoritarianism, bigotry and fanaticism so easily take root. In the Ottoman Empire, it was the printing press that was banned and condemned Muslims to darkness for centuries. In republican Turkey, it was critical books, newspapers, archives and all other “dangerous” sources of information.
As author George Orwell famously wrote:
I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is, for the most part, inaccurate and biased – but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written. The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
And this is what has largely happened in Turkey. With so much information withheld from the Turkish public, state propaganda has created masses who blindly follow whatever state authorities − who have lost their moral compass and never object or speak out even when they see brutal violations of human rights, who do not respect differing opinions or the right to dissent, and who promote an extremely inaccurate version of history – have to say.
Political developments in Turkey, which has been ruled under a nationwide state of emergency enforced since the failed coup attempt of last year, seem to shock much of the world and many Turkish citizens. But in terms of censorship, banned books and ideas, as well as a lack of free speech and free press, Turkey has always been under a state of emergency. And millions of Turkish citizens are not even aware of it.
Few people can see this, even in Turkey. Because of the intentional warping of reality concerning suppression of dissent in Turkey.
This did not begin with Erdogan the Islamist. It has always been a taboo subject. Punishable by death for dissent.
Turkey Ping!
wow. explains a LOT. How many nations are truly free? Have to research.
How many countries are there where there is no freedom to publish?
“Of the 196 countries and territories assessed during calendar year 2009, 69 (35 percent) were rated Free, 64 (33 percent) were rated Partly Free, and 63 (32 percent) were rated Not Free. This represents a move toward the center compared with the survey covering 2008, which featured 70 Free, 61 Partly Free, and 64 Not Free countries and territories.
“The survey found that only 16 percent of the world’s inhabitants live in countries with a Free press, while 44 percent have a Partly Free press and 40 percent live in Not Free environments. The population figures are significantly affected by two countries—China, with a Not Free status, and India, with a Partly Free status—that together account for more than two billion of the world’s roughly six billion people. The percentage of those enjoying Free media in 2009 declined to the lowest level since 1996, when Freedom House began incorporating population data into the findings of the survey.”
https://www.quora.com/How-many-countries-are-there-where-there-is-no-freedom-to-publish
wow, check out INDIA!!
“India’s Speech Impediments”
This year, the world’s largest democracy ranked a miserable 140th out of 179 countries in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index — falling nine places from last year. Today, Afghanistan and Qatar have a freer press than India.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/indias-limited-freedom-of-speech.html
hmmm. From Committee to Protect Journalists site 2015:
Finding new ways to censor journalists in Turkey
Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director, announced a bit of rare good news regarding the Turkish media at November’s 2014 Press Freedom Awards ceremony in New York City: The number of Turkish journalists in jail had dropped to a low of seven. Some organizations, using different methodology, put the number somewhat higher, but most agree that those imprisoned are primarily Kurdish journalists or left-leaning reporters and editors. Almost all are serving prison sentences, as opposed to pre-trial detentions, based on Turkey’s dubious Anti-Terror Law.
https://cpj.org/2015/04/attacks-on-the-press-finding-new-ways-to-censor-journalists-in-turkey.php
which all makes me realize that the swamp creatures are telling lies to make the people NOT TRUST the media. Bringing down our republic a step at a time.
"The percentage of those enjoying Free media in 2009 declined to the lowest level since 1996, when Freedom House began incorporating population data into the findings of the survey.”
I'd say it is a sad but accurate accessment of where we are globally and in the US. And that statistic was compiled 8 years ago.
From your 2nd source.
"The organizers of the literary festival had held up Kolkata as the “cultural capital of India.” The notion that any cultural capital would try to silence speech — or punish artists who do speak out — is, of course, preposterous.
Is this any different than what is happening at UC Burkley or many other Universities?
From your 3rd Source.
"In most of the big media newsrooms, top editors who receive astronomical salaries operate regularly as reverse gatekeepers, or censors on the payroll, whose job it is to reject stories and comment that would frighten the proprietors and infuriate Erdoğan."
Is that really different from what exists in US Media and the Universities? That is a horrifying statement. Of course the US has in our Constitution the 1st Amendment. In spite of it, we have similar filtering due to economic throttling of "news sources". Imagine the propaganda effect in Turkey where there has NEVER been even a pretense of the freedom of Speech and the Press?
Note: I am troubled about the lack of response to this post. I'm concerned that my focus on the Turk/Kurd conflict has reached a point where even those on the ping list avoid this subject. Or is this a taboo subject that people fear? I thought this was an excellent article.
Thank you for the response. The 3rd source you gave is excellent. It reminds me of a book I have in my library, "The Rocket's Red Glare" , when America Goes to War, the Presidents and the People. (1990) Here is one of the lines I underlined as I read it, there was a time I could quote it from memory. It was not highlighted or emphasized in the test of the author.
"To market official truth so at variance with reality or to engineer consent to policies that mock American values or to bypass public opinion all together, government must now so thoroughly misinform the public as to poison the wellsprings of democracy.
Very Sobering
sobering, indeed. Especially since this administration has declared that nation building is no longer a priority, and democracy, if not wanted is not established.
Their alliance with Israel is VERY interesting from a scriptural point of view.
Speaking of Turks and Kurds, Turkey bombed the PKK because they shot rockets into Turkey recently? Blew up ammo.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=118320&NewsCatID=352
(2 black hawks just flew over my place of residence—I miss being in NC)
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