Michael Winiarski: half a victory for freedom of speech

It went unexpectedly quickly for the judge in Ankara to impose the punishment for Joakim Medin: already after two hours of trial and a brief deliberation, the judgment was announced on eleven months conditional prison. So he will not have to sit off that punishment (unless he commits new crimes in Turkey for the next five years).

Should he also have a conditional judgment in the following trial in Istanbul, unclear when it happens, or even acquitted, he may travel home to Sweden. Of course, it is a personal relief for Joakim Medin and his wife.

But to the end and last Sends both the legal process and the verdict a sharp warning to all journalists who will continue to monitor Turkey. It is no longer risk -free for foreign journalists to carry out journalistic assignments in Turkey. It can be dangerous to set foot in the country at all.

And just that, to scare foreign mass media from reviewing what is going on in Turkey, was probably the very purpose of arresting Joakim Medin and bringing him to trial.

In addition, a conditional judgment does not change and any upcoming release situation for the Turkish journalist corps. No country in the world has imprisoned as many journalists as Turkey. Practically all media in the country is controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This is something that has been going on for a long time during Erdogan’s 20-year-old rule, and thus nothing new. The repression against the free word has always been tough in Turkey, but it increased sharply after the failed military coup against Erdogan in the summer of 2016.

The coup gave Erdogan the opportunity to strengthen its grip on the country and freedom of the press was drastically restricted. Using the state of emergency closed or took over the government about 200 newspapers, magazines, radio stations and TV channels.

Three years after the coup Had over 180,000 employees been fired or suspended from their jobs within the police, the military, the mass media, the courts and the school system – which corresponds to a tenth of Turkey’s public employees.

When I then met a number of leading journalists in Istanbul who had recently been dismissed, but who were still on the loose, one of them told me:

– Turkey has become like a big Guantánamo. There are clear rules for what you absolutely must not write about.

Then over 160 journalists sat in prison. Today’s figure is lower, and today 42 journalists are imprisoned in Turkish prisons. But it does not mean relief in freedom of the press or reduced coercive measures against dissent.

Just the last week The authorities have arrested 47 people, including several officials from Istanbuls and Ankara’s opposition city councils and a son -in -law to the city’s popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, which was arrested in mid -March. According to Istanbul’s prosecutor, they were suspected, among other things, to « lead a criminal organization ». It is the usual term when a politician or official belonging to the opposition is arrested.

The political opposition is properly depressed. Imamoglus party, Republican People’s Party (CHP), won a majority of the national votes in last year’s local elections. The same day he was arrested, Imamoglu was formally nominated as CHP’s presidential candidate.

The arrest triggered the largest national protest in the country since 2013, when security forces were brutally defeated the protesters in the Gezi Park movement. Thousands of people were arrested throughout the country during the protests, and there was a circulated information that many of them were subjected to abuse and abuse in the police’s detention.

Imamoglu, who added Erdogan’s allied election losses in both 2019 and 2024, issued a statement via social media where he condemned the wave of arrest as an attempt by the government to, with the help of « empty lies and slander, » turn the legal apparatus into a political weapon.

That is exactly what has happened with the arrest and the trial against Swedish journalist Joakim Medin. Everyone understands that there was no sustainable basis for the allegations of « insult » by the head of state. As little as there is justification for the terrorist charges against Medin. It is simply a matter that the uncomfortable journalism for the authorities should not be allowed.