TESEV: Partial judiciary, most media go hand in hand

“The dominant approach adopted by the press toward major issues affecting the judiciary is to be in support of statist judicial practices,” said Meryem Erdal, who authored the study by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV).

“A significant portion of the press holds a militaristic perspective based on institutional legitimacy,” Erdal said, adding that the journalistic outcome of this perspective contributes to the democratization of neither the judiciary nor the society.

Human rights lawyer Erdal explained at a TESEV panel discussion introducing the study that she selected some critical court cases concerning the “deep state” such as Susurluk, Şemdinli, Ergenekon and the murder of Hrant Dink in addition to political party closure cases such as that of the Democracy Party (DEP) and the Welfare Party (RP) because they significantly hampered the democratization process in the country.

In order to reveal the media’s perception of justice and the judiciary as concerns these cases, Erdal examined the coverage of five politically diverse newspapers: Hürriyet, Zaman, Ortadoğu, Radikal and Taraf.

Erdal pointed out that even though the newspapers that she took into consideration are distinct in their political orientation, when it comes to the coverage of the deep state, they share one approach. “The dominant idea in the press is that the state is sacred, and when the interests of the state are in consideration, the press shares a militaristic view,” she said.

According to the study, this view was clearly demonstrated in the presentation of news related to the Şemdinli case, which centers on an incident in which noncommissioned gendarmerie officers were caught bombing a bookstore with a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) informant in the southeastern town of Şemdinli. The prosecutor in the case, Ferhat Sarıkaya, was disbarred after he included then-Land Forces Commander Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt in his indictment.

“The prosecutor became a victim as a result of the case, but the press had the attitude of ‘How dare he’?” Erdal said regarding Sarıkaya’s move to include Gen. Büyükanıt.

Regarding civilian-military relations, Erdal said the press is strictly divided. “The press that supports an investigation into the deep state is more sensitive to the issue while the other side is not.”

She indicated in the study that the strict division of the press prevents supporting the judiciary to eliminate the “deep state,” which has come under scrutiny with the investigation into Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist gang believed to be the extension of a clandestine network of groups with members in the armed forces who were plotting to stage a coup against the government.

Through various examples, she demonstrated in the study that the Hürriyet and Ortadoğu dailies abstained from using the “terrorist organization” label in their definition of Ergenekon while Zaman, Taraf and Radikal used the term.

Another issue Erdal dissected is how the press views a fair trial process. In general, she found that newspapers employ a selective manner when it comes to fair trials. In other words, the interest of the press in the issue is limited to specific cases and segments of society, and the coverage is not based on coherent and objective criteria.

“For example, the press discovered during the Ergenekon trial process that a prolonged court process is a major problem. However, the same press is totally mute about the fact that this is a common judicial practice in Turkey, and a trial lasting two to three years is not uncommon,” she said.

She added that the press is pretty comfortable with this aspect of the justice system when people who they support ideologically are released.

Another panel participant, Kürşat Bumin from Yeni Şafak daily supported that view. He also gave examples from the broadcast media. “Media is an ideological tool,” he said referring to the current state of the media in Turkey. “It’s very ill, and it will take some time for it to pull itself together.” He suggested that civilian institutions should interfere in the attitude of the media to reverse that situation.

Etyen Mahçupyan, TESEV’s democratization program director, who moderated the panel said that media has to change too, if Turkey is changing in the direction of more democracy, and they will continue with studies focusing on other aspects of the issue.