The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
My friend Mustafa Akyol has kindly taken the time to reply to my post. I suggested that he, like many in Turkey, has made a deadly error in his arguments about freedom of speech. I'm reproducing his response here, and I've invited him to join our discussion. Please welcome him, and please remember that we don't have freedom of speech here on Ricochet. We have the Code of Conduct, which means the year is 1954, you are at a church social with June Cleaver and the Queen Mother, and the Fonz is watching. Anyone who so much as hints of incivility on this thread will be asked to step into the Fonz's office.
Journalists in a junta: An oxymoron?
My friend Claire Berlinski was as sharp as ever in her recent rebuttal to what I wrote here about Turkey's Ergenekon trial and its excesses. I certainly see and appreciate Claire's point. But I do have a point, too.
The issue at hand here is whether any journalist can ever be rightly accused for being a part of a military coup scheme. Claire rejects this categorically, arguing that journalists should be untouched even if they "deliberately, knowingly, and maliciously spread propaganda on behalf of the military"--a military that is planning a take over against a democratically elected government.
I beg to differ. In fact, I see the potential threat here to fee speech: journalists might simply be sharing an ideology with a junta, and it will be terrible to try them merely for that ideological parallelism. That's what I fear is happening now with regards to some "Ergenekon suspects," as I voiced here and here (in Turkish). That is also why I am growingly frustrated about the Ergenekon probe. Claire is also right to point out that governments (or courts) can not sort out what is "black propaganda" and what is not.
Yet I would have a different take if the journalists in question are in direct cooperation with junta members and taking orders from those officers to do things (such as running manipulative news) to intentionally help their military coup plans.
As an example, consider Al Qaeda and a militant Islamist publication, hypothetically named Jihad Times, that helps the former. In fact, that publication should be free in a free country. What it does, after all, is just to propagate a bad ideology. But what if we discover an "organic link" between that Jihad Times and Al Qaeda? What if Osama Bin Ladin -- who is, unfortunately, not very phone-savy -- is wiretaped by the police while calling the editor of that publication and telling him to run a story that will, for example, help gather more people to a building that Al Qaeda will bomb the next day?
We can discuss this, but my take would be to consider that editor as a criminal as well. Similarly, I would consider a journalist as a criminal, if he is in active cooperation with the officers who are planning a military coup.
In fact, it is even discussable whether the Jihad Times should have been allowed to operate in the first place. It probably is not an outrageous idea to think that democracies might limit free speech in order to defend themselves against clear and present dangers. Consider German laws banning Holocaust denial. In fact, as disgusting as it is, Holocaust denial should be free in a free country -- as it is in the United States. But Germany has a terrible history with regards to fascism and anti-Semitism, and the German laws seem to have taken some preemptive measures against a possible resurgence of that threat.
Turkey, on the other hand, has a terrible history with regards to military coups. And, believe me, you get very sensitive about this, if you have parents and friends who have passed through the torture chambers of the previous juntas.
And my response.
Mustafa, sure. Al Qaeda calls me and says, "Operative 97Z3X, here are your orders. You write a column annoucing that Ashton Kucher is giving away free iPhones in Times Square. Then when all the kiddies are in one place, we'll bomb it to Kingdom Come"--yes indeed, I would surely be a criminal if I went along with this plan. I'd also be a criminal--despite being a journalist--if I committed mail fraud, tax evasion, arson, embezzlement, or grand theft auto. No one's arguing about that.
What they're arguing about is whether the journalists in question have in fact committed any such crime. And no one knows, because for the most part, they haven't been charged. With anything. They're in "investigative detention." No charges, no trial, no conviction. Just a lot of slop in the press about their "connection to Ergenekon."
As the chief of the Ankara bar pointed out today, these arrests are illegal. They are in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the Turkish legal code.
“Arresting people has already crossed the line in Turkey. Ninety-nine of 100 arrest decisions lack the concrete reason required by laws. The laws require concrete evidence such as when and how [recently arrested journalists] became a member of a terror organization,” criminal lawyer Metin Feyzioğlu, who is also the chief of Ankara Bar Association, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Monday.
Open-ended, unlimited detention pending investigation is in violation of Article 19 of the Turkish Constitution, Article 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Consider just the two recent cases, that of Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık--charged with "being a member of the Ergenekon organization" and "inciting hatred and animosity among the public."
The first, well, can we get a definition of that crime? What does it take, exactly, to be a member? Because some people are have been languishing in investigative detention for ages on the suspicion that they're members of Ergenekon simply on the grounds they have the names of other people who are also languishing in detention on their cell phones. You know that. (And the more who are arrested, the more apt any journalist is to have the name of someone who's been arrested on his cell phone.)
And by the way, what kinds of idiots are these Ergenekon plotters? Why would they invite the very journalists who have been working for years to expose Turkey's Deep State in on a Deep State plot to overthrow the government? You know who the very last person in the world I'd invite to the party would be if I were trying to pull off a plot like that? Why, this journalist!
Şener, an author and investigative reporter at the Turkish daily national newspaper Milliyet, came to prominence following the publication of his book on the murder of Dink, the Turkish-Armenian who was editor-in-chief of Agos. Şener’s controversial book uncovered the involvement of Turkish security agencies in Dink’s killing outside of the Armenian weekly newspaper’s office in January 2007. His book led to the filing of charges by several senior police and security service officials.
As for inciting hatred, now, if that's a crime, all of Turkey needs to be locked up. Start with the two bozos outside my window who apparently owing to a minor fender-bender are this very second inciting so much hatred that I had to put in my earplugs just to concentrate.
That charge has apparently been dropped. But they're both still in detention--pending a bit more investigation, however long that takes. That's presumably because the prosecutors are from the Lavrentiy Beria School of Forensic Investigation: Show me the man and I'll find you the crime.
So, at what point do we find out just which terrorist group these journalists belonged to, and what exactly they did on its behalf? Could be years. Four years so far, and not one conviction in the Ergenekon investigation. Not one. Journalist after journalist arrested on "secret charges." The government won't make public the evidence it has against them.
At least 60 journalists in jail. At least 2000 journalists on trial or in court. At least 4,000 journalists under investigation. You don't really believe they were all material accomplices to a coup plot, do you? I mean, think about that: If you're trying to keep something a secret, are you really going to invite thousands of ambitious investigative journalists to your coup-plotting party? Does that make any sense at all?
You get the feeling that the prosecutors have managed somehow to persuade themselves that the words "press conference" are in fact a code for "coup plot." Because that's the best way to explain it. It would make sense to invite a few thousand journalists to a press conference. Inviting them all to plot a secret coup--well, when I'm trying to keep a dirty secret, I don't call the first two thousand journalists in my Rolodex. In fact, they'd be the last people I'd call, even if I think they might be useful and sympathetic at some point. Best to keep them out of the loop until after the coup--that would be my judgment.
Anyway, I applaud your bravery in speaking out. A lot of your colleagues won't go on the record anymore when I speak to them. They're too scared.
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
Unless Erdogan shows proof or wiretap recordings that all these journalists were conspiring with the military to overthrow his gov't, then I have to conclude that this is just an attempt to silence his more vocal critics in the Turkish media.
May '10
Re: The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
What constitutes "material cooperation"? Advocacy of a secular regime? Criticism of an Islamic government?
In the US, of course, we have those on the Right grousing about how "The Mainstream Media" brainwashes the people. On the Left, they get very frightened about Fox News and some radio stations daring to criticize. Both sides are wrong in this regard. As long as there are two sides presenting their case, neither can succeed in brainwashing even a plurality of the people.
For this to work, however, the government cannot be allowed to dictate limits on what opposition speech may be safely allowed. Otherwise, there is only a token opposition. A straw man and a foil, to make the government look good. This state of affairs is no better (possibly worse) than the State Media of the dictatorships that are tottering across the region.
Re: The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
A church social in 1954?! Vallahi, arkadaşım! That's one of the things that set Seyyid Qutb off, giving us the Ikhwân! : )
Re: The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
Ve Mustafa Bey, Ricochet’ye hoş geldin!
Edited on Mar 8, 2011 at 8:32amDec '10
Re: The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
Sir, you write about “German laws banning Holocaust denial” that those “laws seem to have taken some preemptive measures against a possible resurgence of that threat.”
I have never seen this law under that light. Please reconsider that it has no purport for the future, it is not preventive or proactive; it is retrograde, it protects the past. Denier theories are vile, bilious, and beguiling but the law eradicates—in effect—any reference to the Holocaust.
It intends to suppress scrutiny of the history of not so ancient relatives, that memories of their existence fade into an undifferentiated past, melding the folklore of confrontations with Caesar’s legions across the Rhine with grandpa’s service as a driver shuttling the innocent into eternity.
Not only is that law itself a complicit accessory in the perpetuation of denial of this infamous crime, it is counterproductive. Enforcement of the Germans’ ignorance of their history proverbially ensures the inevitable repetition of it.
For sorting out "black propaganda" please leave it to journalists to do what they do best—spread conspiracies, propaganda, falsehoods, and many shades of truth—and to an informed citizenry to untangle the conspiracies, propaganda, and falsehoods with its common sense.
Edited on Mar 8, 2011 at 9:36amRe: The Free Speech Debate: Mustafa Akyol Responds
Interestingly--and I am not kidding--I think Mustafa Bey is right now on his way to the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. What will result of that is anyone's guess.