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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:29 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Woland wrote: |
| Please note that it is not the Turkish government that is bringing these charges, but ultranationalists...the prosecutors' offices and the judicial branch are out of [the govt's] hands. |
Thanks for the post.
What you seem to be describing is a criminal justice system where private parties (be it political parties or influential individual citizens, it is not clear to me), in addition to the govt, may initiate criminal investigations -- and they have the discretionary power to initiate prosecutions as well.
So even though the govt may pass, any given number of private parties can start the wheels of justice rolling at their own discretion and for their own purposes? |
You're welcome.
Let me clarify a bit. I really don't want to go in to the full complexities of this, in part because I don't completely get them and in part because people will start making Byzantium jokes.
Anyone can point out a possible violation to a prosecutor's office. The prosecutor's office has an investigatory function and can decide if charges are appropriate. The prosecutor's office can independently investigate any offence it perceives and decide if charges are appropriate. In Stephen Kinzer's book, Cresecent and Star (which I think is the best popular introduction to modern Turkey you'll find), he interviews a man whose job it is to read the newspapers and note anything that might be an offence for the prosecutor's office.
The prosecutor's office can decide that no charges are necessary, which is what happened in the first attempt to charge Safak. But you can go to a prosecutor for a higher court and try to get the earlier decision changed, which is what the ultranationalist lawyers have done successfully in this case.
When I speak of the 'Turkish gov't' in my earlier post, I'm speaking of the legislative branch. The Prime Minister is Head of Government. However, Turkey has a President, elected by the legislature, who is Head of State, and whose position is not entirely ceremonial. He holds a number of checks on the legislature and certain outright powers. The Judicial Branch is nominally independent, but aspects of it, including the prosecutors' offices and judges are more under the sway off the Executive.
While the current gov't is, as noted above, from the moderately Islamicist Justice and Development Party, the President was elected by a government headed by the Social Democratic Democratic Left Party (in coalition with the ecomonic liberal Motherland party and, yes, the ultranationalist National Action Party - Turkish politics makes for strange bedfellows; cue the Byzantium jokes). The President is a former Chief Justice of the Turkish Supreme Court, a staunch secularist and Kemalist, and also a genuinely modest and popular man. There are fundamental conflicts at play now between the President and the Prime Minister, some of which appear at the personal level (the Prime Minister cannot bring his headscarf-wearing wife to any official events attended by the President; the Prsident cannot bring his wife to any official events with the Prime Minister because then protocol would require the Prime Minister's wife be present). Both sides are advocates for greater free speech in Turkey (as well as for entry into the EU - strange bedfellows again), but getting them to agree on what the changes in law should be to support that is tough. The government faces elections in the next year and, as I noted above, doesn't need to antagonize the nationalists. In this reform vacuum, ultranationalists are taking advantage to press these cases.
The failure of the first attempt to charge Safak points to a couple of things. One, the case is probably weak. Two, the weakness arises from an increasing liberalism in the judiciary, including in the prosecutors' offices, which have been traditionally very hard bastions of secularism and Kemalism. More prosecutors and judges are seeing the free speech cases from a liberal perspective, which is why I think it is likely that this will be tossed eventually. But it only takes one prosecutor to bring a case, one judge to decide it.
Things are getting better, but there's work still to be done. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 4:41 am Post subject: |
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Gopher,
I think it is you who are being a little too sensitive vis a vis the issue of the U.S. A . standing up for "freedom of speech".
I merely was pointing out that a nation that is leading the forefront for "freedom" , has strange bedfellows. For obvious economic reasons. But I also said that it isn't just who U.S. likes who are strangling journalistic freedom.
I've been involved with the freedom of the press issue for a long time. I would suggest you visit www.cpj.org for good info. on many issues including Turkey. http://www.cpj.org/attacks04/mideast04/turkey.html
I was well aware of Turkey's horrible record , having followed closely the case of Nadire Mater who was a friend who worked for a Swiss press house which I was involved with.... Actually Turkey has made some changes to help the situation but still they are very "defensive" about certain issues, especially Armenia.
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Just clarifying the record. You brought in "America's best friends" and, by implication and innuendo, cast aspersions on the United States in an instance where it is wholly unwarranted (again).
This being said, Ddeubel, do you have anything to add to the issue I raised in creating this thread? Have you, for example, read the book, or do you know anything about this writer or her other accomplishments as a professor? |
Well I brought up the U.S.A . for good reasons. Especially given the friendship they have with America and the support they are given, especially in regards to the atrocities they have commited and continue to commit against Kurds. But I also balanced my arguement and Yes, there is not a lot in many instances that the U.S. can do but what little they don't do says a lot. Like not supporting countries with abysmal press freedom records and also not allowing a free press in a key stone state such as Iraq, by planting false news reports and falsifying information.
Your thread title was , Press freedom in Turkey? Not a discussion about Elif Shafak. So that is why I didn't reply specifically to her case.
I think ALL countries have issues with press freedoms. Just some have bigger issues, issues of killing journalists (Iraq for example, seems a lot of journalists have died there, horrendous...). It is this I wanted to point out by my list. Wanted to point out and also highlight that YES the good old U.S of freedom supports many of them but not all...
DD |
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