In Turkey, freedom is in danger

Turkey's government today does not spare any space for its people's basic right to the freedom of expression. The freedom of press is in peril. Even the regime accepts it, albeit indirectly.

All is not well in Turkey's ties with Iran. Turkey is said to be in favour of reuniting two Iranian ethnic Azeri provinces with Azerbaijan. Ankara views Khuzestan, Iran's oil-rich province with a large ethnic Arabs population, as separate from Iran. Turkey has, however, one thing in common with Iran. Like Iran's, Turkey's government today does not spare any space for its people's basic right to the freedom of expression.

Observers say Turkey's all-powerful President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regime has had no consideration for the finer Islamic tradition of 'ijtihad' (independent thinking outside the official interpretation of the Quran). In the recent past, it branded as terrorists ordinary citizens, opposition parties, main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Kurdish politicians. It arrested some pro-Kurdish HDP party mayors on charges of having terror links. In February 2021, it accused its own student demonstrators of being terrorists.

The freedom of press is in peril. Even the regime accepts it, albeit indirectly. Last year, Mesut Hakki Casin, a member of the Turkish Presidential Security and Foreign Policy Board, told the media: "Turkish national intelligence will find [Abdullah Bozkurt]... I don't know whether [it] will feed him to the fish or the sharks, but traitors always get their punishment."

Bozkurt's crime: he is an investigative journalist. He has written extensively on the regime's internal crackdown; corruption; ties with Iran, Hizbullah, al-Qaeda and ISIS; attacks in Iraq and Syria; and export of Islamism. A couple of days back, he revealed the regime's plans to provoke fellow NATO member Greece using clandestine operations.

He was forced to flee Turkey after the alleged coup attempt in 2016. Bozkurt has been in the hiding after he was brutally attacked and injured by three unidentified men outside his former home in Stockholm in September 2020. Countless other Turkish journalists have fled Turkey since 2016.

The observers add India needs to be cautious about the designs of Turkey. President Erdogan seems to be working to revive the institution of the caliphate by 2023. During a commemoration ceremony on February 10, 2018 to mark the death centenary of the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdulhamid II at the Yıldız Palace in Istanbul, Erdogan described Turkey as "a continuation of the Ottomans" and asserted "the essence is the same, soul is the same, even many institutions are the same."

Erdogan has reportedly directed his diplomats to approach prominent clerics, business people and politicians to build his image among Indian Muslims as the only leader of the Muslim world and campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's all-inclusive, progressive policies.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

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