Work ban against correspondents in Turkey: "Insecure and cold spots"

When Thomas Seibert moved to Turkey in the 1990s, the country was still dominated by the military. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, later Prime Minister and President, was a local politician. The governing party AKP was not yet founded.

Seibert has been writing about Turkey for 22 years, including for the "Tagesspiegel" - as long as no other European journalist. He witnessed coup attempts, uprisings, economic crises. Now the government in Ankara wants to force him to stop his work. The presidential office withdrew the press card by e-mail last Friday. According to the law, Seibert is no longer allowed to report from Turkey - as well as ZDF correspondent Jörg Brase and NDR reporter Halil Gülbeyaz, whose accreditation for 2019 was also not renewed.

The media houses have announced that they will object to the expulsion of their correspondents. "We are shocked by the decision of the Turkish Presidential Office, which is a serious interference with the freedom of the press, which we usually only know from countries like Venezuela and Libya," says Tagesspiegel editor-in-chief Mathias Müller von Blumencron. The Foreign Ministry described the decision of the Turkish government as "incomprehensible".

Erdogan has abolished press freedom in Turkey. Almost all major media houses are owned by relatives or friends of the president. More than a hundred Turkish journalists are in jail. Now the government is also expanding its repression against foreign reporters.

In 2016 and 2017, the correspondents of SPIEGEL ONLINE and "Stern", Hasnain Kazim and Raphael Geiger had to leave Turkey after being denied accreditation. "World" journalist Deniz Yücel was in custody for a year. Since the beginning of this year, more than 60 international journalists have been waiting for accreditation, including the author of this article.

"It harms the reputation of Turkey"

Erdogan has reorganized his team following his victory in the presidential elections of June 2018. Among other things, he has appointed Fahrettin Altun, a sociologist who has worked for the government think tank "Seta", as his media director.

Altun is a confidant of Minister of Finance and Erdogan's son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, and has a reputation for being a hardliner. Out of his contempt for Western media, Altun has never made a secret. "Western media must turn to correct information and news sources from Turkey," he wrote after the 2018 election in a post for the Daily Sabah newspaper. "In order to do that, they have to give up their ideological attitude towards Turkey and Erdogan."

Now, Altun is apparently convinced that Erdogan's media director can force foreign journalists into pro-government reporting - including through work prohibitions. Ankara wants to "unsettle and cool down" correspondents, commented Christian Mihr, Germany boss of "Reporters Without Borders" on Facebook. "Unfortunately there is still no normality in German-Turkish relations when it comes to freedom of the press!"

Altun's course is controversial even within the AKP. He could neither understand nor approve of the decision to deny German correspondents accreditation, said the AKP politician Mustafa Yeneroglu to the ARD. "It hurts the reputation of Turkey."

The Federal Government had endeavored to normalize its relationship with Turkey after years of crisis. Their representatives narrowed almost every criticism of the Erdogan regime. One could achieve more for democracy in Turkey, if one secretly acts on the government, it was said from Berlin. The ban on the journalists of "Tagesspiegel", ZDF and NDR once again proves that this strategy has failed.