The National Union of Journalists’ branch meeting in Brighton on Wednesday was packed to hear the talk by Turkish press freedom advocate Umit Ozturk.
In his timely address following the failed coup in Turkey, he spoke about the threats to journalism and human rights under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime.
One of the people who attended, John Keenan, sent in the following report on part of Ozturk’s speech:
“The problem in Turkey at the moment, in terms of press publications and the media, is that there are no media ethics.
“People sometimes cheer when you are lynched, and when they fall into the same position and you support them, they forget that you supported them.
“This culture of revenge and of taking sides in order to protect themselves is at the core of this cancer in the media industry.”
Ozturk said he believed that if the supporters of Fethullah Gülen, the cleric living in exile in the United States whom Erdoğan accuses of being behind the coup, had the same power they would also attack the secular press.
“Frankly speaking,” said Ozturk, “the pro-democracy movements are clueless on the best course of action. The pro-Erdoğan supporters are screaming and lashing out, but we will burn our fingers if we use the methods we employed during the coup of 1980, when we invited Human Rights Watch to Turkey on a fact-finding mission.
“We need to wait for a little while. Meanwhile, the best course of action would be to issue messages of support and solidarity, making it very clear they are made in the name of press freedom.”
Ozturk told of examples of censorship, media restrictions, intimidation, prosecution, imprisonment and physical attacks on journalists.
He has lived in the UK since 1992, working as a human rights reporter, editor and broadcaster. He chaired Amnesty International’s international journalists’ network for 12 years and was a co-founder of the first UK chapter of Reporters Without Borders.
Hat tip: John Keenan
