On December 30, 2016, Turkish investigative journalist Ahmet Sik was arrested and charged with spreading “terrorist propaganda” for a tweet. He is among 144 journalists who are currently in jail in Turkey since the failed coup against President Erdogan last July. The right-wing ruling Justice and Development Party (AK) launched a massive purge of the police, judiciary, media, schools, and universities in response to the coup attempt. Thousands of teachers, municipal workers, and journalists have lost their jobs, and dozens of newspapers and TV stations have been closed.
Sik and journalist Nedim Sener were previously jailed in 2011-2012, and Sik’s book, The Imam’s Army, about the cleric Fethullah Gulen, was banned and never printed. Gulen lives in the U.S. and has been blamed by Erdogan for the attempted coup.
Most sources claim that the media crackdown is a response to the coup attempt. However, if you pull the camera back a bit you see endless and spreading wars throughout the Middle East. These most recent wars were first launched by the US invasion of Afghanistan 16 years ago, followed three years later by the US invasion of Iraq. Both of these wars still continue, even as more countries become involved. Meanwhile attacks against journalists, and journalism are spreading.
In 2016, while doing their jobs, 30 journalists were killed in the Middle East through targeted murders or bomb attacks, though some were caught in a fire fight.
In Syria, Iraq, and Yemen most of these were freelancers under 30 years old, with little or no protective gear or safety training.
During Israel’s offensive against Gaza in 2014, Palestinian media centers were targeted and destroyed, and about a dozen Palestinian journalists were killed.
Currently in Iran journalists are being sentenced to public floggings, high fines, and prison.
As the U.S. wars spread to engulf the entire region, press freedom is high on the casualty list. The local rulers can only carry out this endless and growing battle for control of resources and labor through fascist rule. Turkey has been a major player in the war, on all sides, being used as a staging area for U.S. bombing missions and as a gateway for foreign fighters to enter Syria. The Turkish army has also ruthlessly attacked Kurdish forces, allied with the U.S., who are fighting ISIS.
These fascist attacks are also developing in the U.S., with a striking resemblance to Turkey. Under Trump, we now have lies that masquerade thinly as “alternative facts,” and the press has been labeled “the opposition party.” Six reporters were arrested on Inauguration Day, covering the J20 protests, and are facing felony charges. But this didn’t start with Trump.
Reporters, including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, were arrested, threatened, and assaulted while covering the North Dakota Pipeline protests, as well as marches and rebellions against racist police terror in New York and Ferguson, Missouri. The Obama Administration prosecuted nine cases under the Espionage Act, more than all previous administrations combined, in an attempt to silence whistle blowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and stop government leaks to the press, all in the name of Homeland Security. “Liberal” Obama opened the door for “fascist” Trump to go further.
Fascism is the domestic method used by the rulers to prepare for and wage war. The only solution to war and fascism, both inevitable and recurring stepchildren of capitalism, is communist revolution in Turkey, the Middle East, and around the world. Only an end to capitalism will put an end to its absolute need to exploit, murder, and rob for the sake of profits. Only a working-class revolution, led by its communist party, PLP, can abolish capitalism and replace it with a worker-run system that will no longer require war, fascism, racism, sexism, and nationalism.