It is no longer a secret at home and abroad how bad the situation is with regard to freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Turkey. But with the new media and anti-disinformation law that was recently passed by Parliament, freedom of expression and freedom of the press threatens to wither away to a much greater extent than has been purposefully pursued by the state in recent years. With the law, Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is continuing a long-standing strategy, at the end of which the plurality of opinions in the country will have the liveliness and diversity of a journalistic dead end.
In short, the latest new regulation means that journalists and social media users can be sentenced to up to three years in prison if they “spread or further spread” “fake news” – i.e. false or largely untrue news. Not only the authors of texts, films or tweets are affected, but also the Internet portals and messenger services themselves. They are obliged to hand over the names and data of the users who are allegedly spreading fake news to the authorities.
The opposition is therefore talking about a “censorship law” and wants to appeal to the constitutional court. But the chances that the new regulations can be overturned are slim. They are not yet in force, but President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan only has to sign the law. In any case, there is no doubt about his initials: his governing party, the AKP, introduced the law to parliament.
Social media has become the stage for digital extra-parliamentary opposition
The new law continues the longstanding media policy. The most important broadcasters and newspaper publishers have been bought up step by step by pro-government entrepreneurs for a long time, opposition publishers have been forced to sell or go bankrupt through the deletion of state advertisements, editorial departments and journalists have been massively harassed. In this climate, social media developed into a stage for a kind of digital extra-parliamentary opposition.
These media still form a parallel, often freer and more up-to-date media landscape – of course often enough accompanied by the unbridled intentional or unintentional outliers that are inherent in digital and social media. The Turkish government has been trying to eliminate this for a long time with a variety of legal measures: The new law now affects a number of existing laws and regulations. Internet portals and messenger services, for example, have had to have a branch and representative in Turkey for a good year now. Most of these internationally active companies gave up their resistance surprisingly quickly. They are therefore subject to Turkish law and are liable.
Above all, however, Turkish opposition politicians, journalists and messenger users have been and are being accused and often imprisoned for tweets that are in some cases many years old. The reasons are usually similar: calling for or supporting terrorist activity, insulting the President, hurting religious feelings, alleged violations of personal rights.
At the heart of the new law is an unlimited framework for holding critics accountable
But the central wording of the new law, Paragraph 29, defines the framework much further and actually has it all: “Anyone who publicly disseminates false information that endangers internal or external security, public order, general health and doing so with the aim of creating tension, fear or panic in the public is punishable by imprisonment for between one and three years.”
This wording will now give authorities a virtually unlimited scope to hold users accountable. Who determines what is false information or misleading information? The authorities could be wide open to frame any kind of criticism of government policies as fake news. In addition, there will also be a new committee that will control the issuing of press cards and accreditations for media professionals. Not great prospects for freedom of expression in a country of 85 million people.
The Venice Commission, which supports the Council of Europe in questions of media freedom, has already warned in no uncertain terms: The new law with its threat of imprisonment is intended to “intimidate and increase self-censorship of authors and social media users”. An opposition representative was clearer: “We are dealing with the most repressive law in our history,” said Burak Erbay from the largest opposition party, the CHP. “This law contains the highest level of censorship potential to date.”