Eight months before the next election, Turkish head of state Erdogan is stepping up his crackdown on the media. Even ordinary users of online networks can now face up to three years in prison for allegedly spreading misleading messages. With the new law, operators are called upon to denounce.
Turkey’s parliament has passed a controversial law providing for prison sentences for spreading “false or misleading news”. The majority of MPs voted in favor of courts being able to sentence accredited journalists, as well as ordinary users of online networks, to one to three years in prison. Eight months before the parliamentary elections, the government is intensifying its already tough crackdown on the media. The new regulation has met with criticism at home and abroad, for example from the Council of Europe.
In addition to newspapers, radio and television, the new law is primarily aimed at online networks and online media. They are asked to denounce users who are accused of spreading “fake news” and to pass on their data.
MP Burak Erbay from the secular CHP emphasized that the new law particularly restricts the communication of young people. “I would like to address my brothers who are 15, 16, 17 and who will decide the fate of Turkey in 2023,” Erbay said in parliament. “You have only one freedom left – the phone in your pocket.”
Young people communicated via online networks such as Instagram and Facebook. “If the law passes through parliament here, you can break your phone like that,” added Erbay, smashing his cell phone in the plenary session with a hammer he had brought with him. MP Meral Danis Bektas from the pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP said the law “declares war on the truth”.
Most Turkish newspapers and TV stations were placed under government control immediately after the 2016 coup attempt. Online media, on the other hand, remained largely free. However, the government later forced online services like Facebook and Twitter to deploy local agents who quickly implemented court orders to remove offending content. Head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized in December that online networks had “turned into one of the main threats to today’s democracy”.
The deliberations on the law began in early October. There had been numerous amendments to the 40 articles of the “press law” by the opposition, which had spoken of a “censorship law”. Article 29 provides for prison sentences of between one and three years for “spreading false or misleading information about the country’s internal and external security”, as well as for news “damaging public health, disturbing public order and causing fear or panic among the population might spread”.
The Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member, criticized the vague definition of “disinformation” in the new law in early October. The associated threat of imprisonment could result in “increased self-censorship”, especially with a view to the parliamentary elections in June 2023.
The draft law was introduced in May by members of Erdogan’s AKP. The president wants to be confirmed in office next year. It is likely to be the most difficult election for him since he began his tenure almost two decades ago. The polls for his ruling party are at an all-time low because of runaway inflation and a currency crisis.
Non-governmental organizations regularly denounce the erosion of press freedom in Turkey. Turkey is currently 149th out of 180 in the press freedom rankings compiled by the organization Reporters Without Borders. Media rights activist Veysel Ok criticized that the new law could now prosecute all government critics – “the opposition, the NGOs, legal associations, journalists and ordinary citizens”.
