Sir, this piece of mud won't stick on us
One of the pieces of rags among the pro-government newspapers fabricated a story and printed it as its headline the other day. According to the story created and written at one of the paper’s desks, the Doğan Media Group was supporting a terror organization.
As they see it, they have found proof of their accusation and have printed them as “documents.” What were they? One of them is the story of the death sentencing of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt who was elected with 52 percent of popular vote. Others are Twitter messages of some of our journalist colleagues, interviews and the pirate tweet that was posted when DHA (Doğan News Agency) Twitter account was hacked.
Indeed, we did not take seriously the claims of this piece of rag, which does not have many readers because it does not sell much, thus is not read.
However, it turns out there was one person who read it, and not only that but took it seriously. The acting public prosecutor of Istanbul’s Bakırköy district has taken this story, which was fabricated at a desk, and launched an investigation into the Doğan Media Group for “making propaganda of a terror organization.” We do not know in advance whether or not it will be decided to open a case at the end of the investigation. We have learned now anything can be expected from a court of justice that can launch an investigation by accepting such an invented story as a tipoff.
With such fictitious blames they can raid our newspapers, television stations, businesses and homes; they can collect and take all of us. If we remember the unlawfulness we experienced in Turkey up to now, we can think that all of these are possible.
But I should first tell that this mud you are splashing us with will not stain us. This method you have found to obstruct free press activities with legal penalty threats will not work.
Nobody would credit this drivel of yours while our archives of 67 years are present; while so many hours of our radio and television broadcasts are there, crying out loudly we are against terror.
We know what you want to do.
You want to scare everyone so that you can take Turkey into a totalitarian regime; because your aim is to remove freedoms, democracy and the opposition. To do this, you want to intimidate the press.
This investigation launched means violation of freedom of expression from the point of view of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Before anything else, find and read the decision about the Akçam vs. Turkey case. The ECHR decided that the “deterrent effect” due to an investigation having been launched, even if a case had not been opened, was a violation of the European Human Rights Convention.
Turkey, no matter how much you want the opposite, will continue to be a part of the democratic world.
Look at this economic stability
Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) has disclosed unemployment figures and the situation is disastrous.
As of June 2015, 226,000 people have been added to the unemployed and the number of the unemployed has gone up to 2.88 million.
Among the 15 to 24 age group, 17.7 percent are jobless.
National income figures are not any better. In the past 21 months, our national income has gone back from $822 billion to $772 billion.
In his column at daily Milliyet, Güngör Uras wrote in Turkey, 7.5 million people are living at the level of Bangladesh; 15 percent of our population is under the risk of poverty.
There is only one reason for this; the 13-year-old Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule did not make the structural reforms; they just handled the situation.
Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek who seems to be going through an awakening “in connection with the loss of his seat” said, “Reforms are being avoided because they give results in the long run.”
And they are trying to sell their governing period as representing “economic stability.”
Unemployment has increased; the poor have gotten poorer; public funds were to benefit supporters to create a pro-government rich class.
If we are to talk about any stability, this is the only one we can talk about.
