Resignation Signals New Low For Turkish Journalism
Hasan Cemal, after 45 years as a journalist, loses his job because of government pressure.
The state of the freedom of the media in Turkey has sunk to a new low with Hasan Cemal’s resignation from the daily newspaper Milliyet. Since Milliyet broke the biggest scoop on the latest talks between the government and the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan the tension could not be contained. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly slammed Milliyet for reporting Ocalan’s side of the approach to the talks, and considered it an attempt to sabotage the successful ending of the bloodshed in the name of the Kurdish rights in the country.
Cemal has dedicated a good part of his 45-year journalism career to covering the Kurdish issue. He used to be a militant leftist in the past and therefore when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002, he became one of the strongest supporters of its policies in clamping down the military’s influence over civilian politics. Lately though, he started growing critical of the Erdogan government, too.
Therefore, his departure from Milliyet should not and could not only be perceived from the prism of his support of Namik Durukan, the daily’s longtime correspondent on the Kurdish issue, who obtained the minutes of the conversation between the visiting Kurdish deputies from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and Ocalan on their second visit to Imrali on Feb. 23. Cemal was right in saying that what Durukan did was pure journalism. For Erdogan, though, it was not. “Damn your journalism,” the Turkish prime minister said.
There is much speculation that Erdogan had telephoned Yildirim Demiroren, owner of Milliyet, to talk about Durukan’s scoop. The fact of the matter is that while no one knows exactly what the AKP is promising to Ocalan, it surely created some questions about the prospect of the talks as it once again clearly reflected how the PKK leader considers himself as the only man who can bring peace to the country. To say it bluntly, it revealed his narcissism and how he is so full of himself.
