Turkish Media

By Leon J Williams

When I mention the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons/Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan (TAK) to Turkish people living in Turkey they seem to have never heard of them. Instead stating that all ‘terrorist’ activities carried out in Turkey are the work of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party/Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan).
Why do the Turks think this? Because of the Turkish media, they are told that it is the work of the PKK and the fact that the TAK are FORMER members of the PKK seems to be hidden away from the public.

I was reminded of this issue this morning when I read an article from the Turkish tabloid Hürriyet Daily News with seeming ‘good news’ about Turkey’s progress in its EU application, further reading confused their own audience with some of the comments reading:

“I did not understand exactly what this means, Will they open new chapters or not?”

“Is it really what the headline says, to me it sounds like another delay”

I flicked over to EuroNews only to find an almost opposite headline about the same story…

Left: EuroNews Right: Hurriyet Daily News

Margaret Thatcher – obituary

Only the good die young – Thatcher, dead at 87

Margaret Thatcher died this morning… no don’t celebrate… save that till after you’ve read The Underground!

The wankers in the press piss me off, what a spineless bunch! The Iron Lady this, the Iron Lady that, she saved the UK, defeated Brussels and freed the Falklands!<
Can these media morons not pass a negative comment towards someone when they have died? Are all people who die saints?

It seems that reality and historical fact go out of the window the day someone dies with all the crap that comes with ‘respect’.

I look forward to Nick Griffin’s or Nigel Farage’s obituary! I’m sure we’ll hear how they kept Britain independent or how they nobley stopped the Islamic cultural invasion!
Thatcher, founder of ‘new racism’ and promoter of greed and selfishness whose term in office is noted for its high unemployment and social unrest.

“I deplored her contempt for social values, for citizenship and her brutal indifference to human suffering.” Tom Robinson

“Scotland’s communities suffer the brutal legacy of Margaret Thatcher to this day” Tommy Sheridan

“A lot of her legacy was disastrous – an enormous increase in unemployment, the collapse of manufacturing industry and the doubling of inflation.” Lord Healey

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail song by Dan & Dan

Says it all really!

The morality of arms dealership

Anton

Throw out the notion that the west want peace. Even thinking so is laughable. Do you know how much it would cost to end world hunger?
30 billion dollars a year. Sounds like a lot, until you realise that’s how much is spent on the military every 8 days.
They pay their taxes, and some remote drone takes out a warlord in a public market to protect the west’s interest. It’s not sick to arm people, it’s sick to bump off their leader in your own interest and call it ‘international justice.’

What’s worse: selling handheld radios or weapons?
These workers in arms factories, they’re unionised, right? You think a child working in a sweat shop in Bangladesh pulls 40 hour week and 40 grand a year?
Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity, that there’s a proper way to kill someone. It’s absurd. It’s anesthetic; we need it to endure the bloody horror of murder. When you realise that the arms dealer is the same as the radio salesman, your concept of morals goes towards that of Nietzsche. Either way it’s just business, doing what men have been doing for thousands of years- trading one thing for another.
Against the drone, the AK-47 is the great equaliser.

Daily Headline – 16/03/13

Leveson; UK press regulation

In December I wrote about The Leveson Report.

In regards to the setting up of a regulatory body…

‘The body should consider encouraging the press to be as transparent as possible in relation to sources for its stories, if the information is in the public domain.’ – BBC

Now David Cameron and the tories (Conservatives) are trying to push through an amendment to give the press a veto over who sits on the ‘independent’ panel to oversee compliance with the regulations.

All sides agree that no serving editor or politician can be on the committee but if the press has a veto the keep on vetoing until they get someone who suits their agenda.

Not very independent now is that Dave!

Rupert Murdoch

In perfect timing as a reminder why the Leveson inquiry came to be there have been around 600 new claims of phone hacking against Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, part of News International.

Further details are set to be released on Monday.

LEVESON INQUIRY: CULTURE, PRACTICE AND ETHICS OF THE PRESS

Non-news

By Leon J Williams

The media is talking about the latest Chinese military hacking of the US, this time targeting US infrastructure.

How is this news?

Country’s military cyber departments are always hacking each other, stealing information and/or infecting systems with viruses etc and then in turn those governments deny it.

Daily/weekly occurrences are not news!

Unless something significant happens on the cyber warfare front put a sock in it!

Turkey guilty of torturing journalists

By Leon J Williams

Turkish police officers get 10 month in prison for torturing a journalist.

12 years ago Şenol Gürkan was tortured while in police custody for ‘being a terrorist’.

The officers were originally sentenced to 1 year in prison however that sentence was overturned by the Turkish Supreme Court.

So after 12 years and being defended by the Turkish Supreme Court the police officers get just 10 months for torture.

At the beginning of the month I wrote about Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index (PFI) in which Turkey performed woefully. Sadly this is not set to change, Turkey’s attitude towards journalists and anyone who speaks out against the government is of huge disdain and hatred.
Turkey continues to clamp down on anyone with opposing views and ignore those who attack proponents of free speech.

Turkey has been accused of not adhering to international standards over the definition of terror and terrorists.
The US ambassador to Turkey said “In Turkey, most definitions or terrorism focus on attacks against the Turkish state and the definitions are less clear when it comes to international terrorism”

Imprisonment and torture of journalists and proponents of free speech remains wide-spread in Turkey.

The European Federation of Journalists President Arne könig has said that the terrorism charges against Turkish journalists by the Turkish state was “shocking to hear”. Mr könig went on to say “It was shocking for us to hear that normal journalistic activity can be considered illegal and an act of terror”

Turkey and Belarus; Embarrassments of Europe

By Leon J Williams

Reporters without borders’ Press Freedom Index (PFI) for 2012 shows a shocking but painfully accurate picture of press freedoms around the world.

As with most tables and indexes there are no real surprises, the top positions are filled with European countries (in particular Scandinavian countries) and Canada while the US languishes in 32nd place.

This table appropriately highlights two dreadful countries that blight Europe’s progressive attitude and stance on press freedom (as is true for freedom in general); Turkey and Belarus.

The full table can be found here.

Turkey is 154th in the world and Belarus is 157th.

While Belarus is getting better (up 11 places from last year) Turkey is getting worse, moving down 6 places.

In a statement Reporters Without Borders said “Turkey is currently the worlds biggest prison for journalists, especially those who express views critical of the authorities on the Kurdish issue”

In response Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “We don’t care about some notes given by some associations” he went on to say “Those institutions’ sources are out of order. We make our decisions on our own.”

This complete disregard for wrongly imprisoned people is absolutely disgraceful and a clear sign that while Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party stay in power Turkey will never have freedom of speech nor real freedom in general.

There is no way that Turkey can be allowed to join the European Union (EU) and more countries in the EU should be voicing their concerns at Turkey’s EU application.

Is the BBC obsessed with the US?

By Leon J Williams

For those who aren’t aware (if that’s possible) the BBC is a British media company with an international presence.
BBC News (that’s bbc.co.uk) has news from all round the world, in theory there is a leaning towards UK news as it’s a British company.

BBC News today has 27 main news articles on its front page here’s how they break down:

China – 1 direct & 1 indirect
Russia – 1 direct
Australia – 1 direct
India – 1 direct
Egypt – 1 direct
Japan – 2 direct
Africa – 2 direct
UK – 7 direct
USA – 11 direct and 2 indirect

So out of the 27 articles the most mentioned country was the USA with 11 directly involved articles and a further 2 articles indirectly about the US.

7 out of 10 articles relate to the US.

As a comparison the Guardian today has 20 main articles and here’s how they breakdown:

UK – 11
India – 2
USA – 2
China – 1
Syria – 1
EU – 1
Italy – 1
Pakistan – 1

At first I thought it was in general that the UK media was obsessed with the US but as it has been highlighted it’s more of the BBC’s own obsession.