FOTP 2013 Full Report

Turkey adopted a freedom of information law in 2003. However, state secrets that mayharm national security, economic interests, state investigations, or intelligence activity, or that“violate the private life of the individual,” are exempt from requests.The Supreme Council of Radio and Television, whose members are elected by theparliament, has the authority to sanction broadcasters if they are not in compliance with the lawor the council’s expansive broadcasting principles. The body is frequently subject to politicalpressure. Print outlets can also be closed if they violate laws restricting media freedom. Inaddition to arrests of Kurdish journalists, several Kurdish newspapers have been suspended. InMarch 2012, Özgür Gündem was suspended for one month by the High Criminal Court after itran a headline about Kurds that read “Revolt Speaks.” Police raided the publisher of the paper,the Gün Printing Company, and confiscated copies with the banned headline. The editor in chiefof Özgür Gündem, Reyhan Çapan, was sentenced to one year and three months in prison forprinting the headline. In May, a court suspended Demokratik Vatan for one month for allegedlyspreading terrorist propaganda through the publication of pro-Kurdish stories. During a televiseddebate in August, Erdoğan stated that journalists must ignore the conflict between the Turkisharmy and the PKK, especially regarding the number of Turkish casualties, on the grounds thatsuch coverage amounted to propaganda for terrorism.Ten books were newly banned in 2012, adding to a list of around 400, while 12newspapers were among 46 publications that were confiscated during the year. Publications werebanned under orders from a variety of different ministries and offices. Restricted topics includedKurdish issues, the Armenian genocide, or any subject deemed offensive to Islam or the Turkishstate. As part of the Third Judicial Reform Package, all bans on publications will be void unlessrenewed by court order prior to a January 5, 2013, deadline.Law 5651 allows the authorities to block websites that insult Turkish Republic founderMustafa Kemal Atatürk or contain content that “incites suicide, pedophilia, drug abuse,obscenity, or prostitution,” among other criteria. After being blocked for more than two years forcarrying videos that were deemed insulting to Atatürk, the video-sharing website YouTube wasunblocked in October 2010. As of December 2012, the Turkish Telecommunications Directoratehad reportedly blocked more than 6,600 websites that year and more than 22,000 overall, 47percent of which allegedly contained pornography, according to the Information TechnologiesInstitute. Many websites that published content on Kurdish-related issues were blocked in 2012,including news sites such as Özgürlük.org and Firatnews.org.Media outlets are sometimes denied access to events and information for politicalreasons. In September 2012, seven publications—Cumhuriyet, Sözcü, Birgün, Evrensel, Aydınlık,Özgür Gündem, and Yeniçağ—were denied the accreditation needed to cover the AKP’s fourthparty congress.Threats against and harassment of the press remain much more common than acts ofviolence. Journalists are rarely killed—none were murdered in 2012—and their work is notregularly compromised by the fear of physical attacks, although instability in the southeasternpart of the country does infringe on journalists’ ability to work. The European Court of HumanRights (ECHR) ruled in 2010 that the Turkish government had failed to respond toultranationalist hostility toward Hrant Dink, the editor in chief of the Armenian Turkish weeklyAgos who was assassinated in 2007. Prior to his murder, Dink had twice been prosecuted underArticle 301 for insulting Turkishness. In 2011, a juvenile criminal court convicted Ogün Samast,who was 17 at the time of the killing, of premeditated murder and sentenced him to more than 22years in prison. In January 2012, the High Criminal Court issued rulings in the cases of an382