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Erdogan threatens media with reprisals over ‘harmful’ content

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a media conference at the G20 summit in Rome, Oct. 31, 2021. (AP)
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Updated 30 January 2022
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Erdogan threatens media with reprisals over ‘harmful’ content

  • Erdogan has railed against high interest rates, which he believes cause inflation — the exact opposition of conventional economic thinking
Updated 30 January 2022
Reuters AFP

ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday threatened Turkish media with reprisals if they disseminated content that damaged the country’s core values, in a move that might be a prelude to further censorship in the sector.

In a notice published in the Official Gazette, he said measures were needed to protect Turkey’s “national culture” and prevent its children’s development “from being adversely affected as a result of exposure to harmful content on all written, verbal and visual media.”
Erdogan did not specify what such content was, but said legal action would be taken against “overt or covert activities through the media aimed at undermining our national and moral values ​​and disrupting our family and social structure.”
Erdogan has been in power for nearly 20 years and has often criticized media content that is out of step with the Islamic values espoused by his AK Party.
Turkey has in recent years also moved to increase media oversight, with around 90 percent of major media now owned by the state or close to the government.

BACKGROUND

Erdogan has been in power for nearly 20 years and has often criticized media content that is out of step with the values espoused by his AK Party.

Its Western allies and critics have said Erdogan has been using a 2016 failed coup attempt to muzzle dissent and erode social rights and tolerance.
The government has denied this, saying the measures are necessary due to the gravity of the threats Turkey faces and that freedom of religious expression has been restored in a once strongly secular republic.
The RTUK radio and television watchdog has sweeping oversight over all online content, which it also has the power to remove.
It has fined TV stations over footage it says violates Turkish values, such as music videos it has labeled “erotic” or content it deems to have insulted the president.
Tens of thousands have been prosecuted under the latter law including Sedef Kabas, a well-known journalist jailed last week pending trial after posting a proverb about Erdogan’s palace on her Twitter account and repeating it on  an opposition television channel.
In another development, Erdogan has sacked the head of the state statistics agency, according to a decree published on Saturday, after releasing data showing last year’s inflation rate hit a 19-year high of 36.1 percent.
Sait Erdal Dincer was just the latest in a series of economic dismissals by Erdogan, who has sacked three central bank governors since July 2019.
Erdogan has railed against high interest rates, which he believes cause inflation — the exact opposition of conventional economic thinking. The 2021 inflation figure released by Dincer angered both the pro-government and opposition camps.
The opposition said it was underreported, claiming that the real cost of living increases was at least twice as high.
Erdogan meanwhile reportedly criticized the statistics agency in private for publishing data that he felt overstated the scale of Turkey’s economic malaise. Dincer seemed to sense his impending fate.
“I sit in this office now, tomorrow it will be someone else,” he said in an interview with the business newspaper Dunya earlier this month.
“Never mind who is the chairman. Can you imagine that hundreds of my colleagues could stomach or remain quiet about publishing an inflation rate very different from what they had established?”
“I have a responsibility to 84 million people,” he added.
Erdogan did not explain his decision to appoint Erhan Cetinkaya, who had served as vice-chair of Turkey’s banking regulator, as the new state statistics chief.
“This will just increase concern about the reliability of the data, in addition to major concerns about economic policy settings,” Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management said in a note to clients.
The agency is due to publish January’s inflation data on Feb. 3. In December, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was refused an appointment with Dincer and turned away by security guards when he sought to enter the statistic agency’s headquarters in Ankara.
He had accused the agency of “fabricating” the numbers to hide the true impact of the government’s policies and slammed it as “no longer a state institution but a palace institution,” in reference to Erdogan’s presidential complex.
Also on Saturday, Erdogan appointed a new justice minister, naming former Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag to replace veteran ruling party member Abdulhamit Gul.
“I have resigned from my duties at the Ministry of Justice, which I have been serving since July 19, 2017,” Gul wrote on Twitter.
“I would like to express my gratitude ... for accepting my request,” he added, without explaining his decision.
Ali Babacan, former deputy prime minister who left the ruling AKP party and founded the Deva Party, took to Twitter to vent fury over the changes.
“The justice minister is being replaced, (statistics agency) TUIK chairman is being dismissed before the inflation data is published. Nobody knows why,” he said.

Topics: Turkey Daesh

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Taliban govt clearing ‘un-Islamic’ books from Afghanistan shelves

Updated 19 sec ago
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Taliban govt clearing ‘un-Islamic’ books from Afghanistan shelves

  • Committee identified 400 titles “that conflicted with Islamic and Afghan values”
Updated 19 sec ago
KABUL: Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles — Taliban authorities are working to remove “un-Islamic” and anti-government literature from circulation.
The efforts are led by a commission established under the Ministry of Information and Culture soon after the Taliban swept to power in 2021 and implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia.
In October, the ministry announced the commission had identified 400 books “that conflicted with Islamic and Afghan values, most of which have been collected from the markets.”
The department in charge of publishing has distributed copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic texts to replace seized books, the ministry statement said.
The ministry has not provided figures for the number of removed books, but two sources, a publisher in Kabul and a government employee, said texts had been collected in the first year of Taliban rule and again in recent months.
“There is a lot of censorship. It is very difficult to work, and fear has spread everywhere,” the Kabul publisher told AFP.
Books were also restricted under the previous foreign-backed government ousted by the Taliban, when there was “a lot of corruption, pressures and other issues,” he said.
But “there was no fear, one could say whatever he or she wanted to say,” he added.
“Whether or not we could make any change, we could raise our voices.”


AFP received a list of five of the banned titles from an information ministry official.
It includes “Jesus the Son of Man” by renowned Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran, for containing “blasphemous expressions,” and the “counterculture” novel “Twilight of the Eastern Gods” by Albanian author Ismail Kadare.
“Afghanistan and the Region: A West Asian Perspective” by Mirwais Balkhi, an education minister under the former government, was also banned for “negative propaganda.”
During the Taliban’s previous rule from 1996 to 2001, there were comparatively few publishing houses and booksellers in Kabul, the country having already been wracked by decades of war.
Today, thousands of books are imported each week alone from neighboring Iran — which shares the Persian language with Afghanistan — through the Islam Qala border crossing in western Herat province.
Taliban authorities rifled through boxes of a shipment at a customs warehouse in Herat city last week.
One man flipped through a thick English-language title, as another, wearing a camouflage uniform with a man’s image on the shoulder patch, searched for pictures of people and animals in the books.
“We have not banned books from any specific country or person, but we study the books and we block those that are contradictory to religion, sharia or the government, or if they have photos of living things,” said Mohammad Sediq Khademi, an official with the Herat department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV).
“Any books that are against religion, faith, sect, sharia... we will not allow them,” the 38-year-old told AFP, adding the evaluations of imported books started some three months ago.
Images of living things — barred under some interpretations of Islam — are restricted according to a recent “vice and virtue” law that codifies rules imposed since the Taliban returned to power, but the regulations have been unevenly enforced.
Importers have been advised of which books to avoid, and when books are deemed unsuitable, they are given the option of returning them and getting their money back, Khademi said.
“But if they can’t, we don’t have any other option but to seize them,” he added.
“Once, we had 28 cartons of books that were rejected.”


Authorities have not gone from shop to shop checking for banned books, an official with the provincial information department and a Herat bookseller said, asking not to be named.
However, some books have been removed from Herat libraries and Kabul bookstores, a bookseller told AFP, also asking for anonymity, including “The History of Jihadi Groups in Afghanistan” by Afghan author Yaqub Mashauf.
Books bearing images of living things can still be found in Herat shops.
In Kabul and Takhar — a northern province where booksellers said they had received the list of 400 banned books — disallowed titles remained on some shelves.
Many non-Afghan works were banned, one seller said, “so they look at the author, whose name is there, and they are mostly banned” if they’re foreign.
His bookshop still carried translations of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Gambler” and fantasy novel “Daughter of the Moon Goddess” by Sue Lynn Tan.
But he was keen to sell them “very cheap” now, to clear them from his stock.

Meta Oversight Board says wrong to remove Moscow attack posts

Updated 19 November 2024
AFP
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Meta Oversight Board says wrong to remove Moscow attack posts

  • Non-binding board ruling argues news value justified exemption from platform rules
  • Daesh claims responsibility for Moscow concert hall attack that killed over 140 people
Updated 19 November 2024
AFP

SAN FRANCISCO: The Meta Oversight Board on Tuesday said the social network was wrong to remove three Facebook posts showing images from a deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall in March.
The posts did violate Meta rules against showing victims during an attack, but their news value should have made them exempt from those rules, according to the independent board.
“In a country such as Russia with a closed media environment, accessibility on social media of such content is even more important,” the board said in a written decision.
“Suppressing matters of vital public concern based on unsubstantiated fears it could promote radicalization is not consistent with Meta’s responsibilities to free expression.”
Each of the posts clearly condemned the attack, expressing solidarity with or concern for victims, according to the board.
Meta should restore the posts — adding a warning that the content could be disturbing to viewers, the board ruled.
Four gunmen stormed the Crocus City venue before the start of a rock concert, opened fire on the audience and set fire to the building, in an assault claimed by the Daesh group.
The assault claimed more than 140 lives, the deadliest attack in Russia for almost 20 years.
The board is referred to as a top court for content disputes at Meta, and the social media giant has agreed to abide by its decisions.

Topics: Meta Russia Daesh Meta Oversight Board

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Media watchdog condemns Israeli labelling of Gaza journalists as ‘terrorists’

Updated 19 November 2024
Arab News
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Media watchdog condemns Israeli labelling of Gaza journalists as ‘terrorists’

  • Reporters Without Borders director general says move is part of troubling trend to control narrative of the ongoing conflict
Updated 19 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: Reporters Without Borders has condemned Israel for labeling journalists in Gaza as “terrorists,” describing the move as part of a troubling trend to control the narrative of the ongoing conflict.

Speaking in Geneva, RSF Director General Thibaut Bruttin voiced alarm over the Israeli Defense Forces’ portrayal of Palestinian journalists, calling it a blatant disregard for press freedom.

“We’re seeing Israeli defense forces trying to portray Palestinian journalists as terrorists. So we’re very worried about that trend too,” said Bruttin.

“In the past we had responses which were not satisfying … but still they were trying to pretend that they were abiding by international standards in terms of protection of the press. Today, now they’re outrageously lying and trying to portray journalists in Gaza as terrorists.”

Since the conflict began on Oct. 7 last year, Israel has been accused of waging a “retaliatory campaign” against media workers in Gaza.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 137 journalists — mostly Palestinians — have been killed so far, though the actual toll is believed to be significantly higher.

“Not only have they not been able to protect them, but also we have good reasons to believe that a fair amount of the about 140 journalists that have been killed have been deliberately killed, have been targeted,” Bruttin said.

Bruttin, who succeeded Christophe Deloire in July, highlighted the dire conditions faced by Palestinian journalists, noting severe shortages of essential resources such as food, water and electricity.

He emphasized that Gaza remained closed to international press, forcing global news outlets to rely heavily on exhausted local journalists who faced dual risks as both civilians and potential targets.

“We’re very worried about what’s happening there,” Bruttin said, describing the circumstances as “unprecedented.”

He urged the international community to hold Israel accountable for its treatment of journalists, stressing the need for genuine pressure on Tel Aviv to change its policies.

Despite the dangers, journalists continue to report on the conflict, said Bruttin.

“In such a short period of time, I think it’s fairly unprecedented. But we have seen wars in the beginning of the 21st century which have been very violent and rough too.

“The war in Iraq has been a nightmare for journalists and hundreds of journalists have been killed there. So we are aware of the specific nature of the conflict in Gaza.”

Topics: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) War on Gaza Israel Journalists

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Publisher defends prize-winning French novel after Algerian victim’s claims

Updated 19 November 2024
AFP
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Publisher defends prize-winning French novel after Algerian victim’s claims

  • Kamel Daoud’s novel “Houris” centered on Algeria’s civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s
  • Survivor of a massacre alleged on Algerian TV that the main character in the book is based on her experiences
Updated 19 November 2024
AFP

PARIS: The publisher of the novel that won France’s top literary price has strongly defended its French-Algerian author after an Algerian survivor of a 1990s massacre in the North African country claimed the book is based on her story used without her consent.
French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud this month won the Goncourt for his novel “Houris” centered on Algeria’s civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s.
The novel, banned in Algeria, tells the story of a young woman who loses her voice when an Islamist cuts her throat as she witnesses her family being massacred during the civil war.
However the survivor of a massacre during the period has alleged on Algerian TV that the main character in the book is based on her experiences.
The woman, Saada Arbane, said she had told her story during a course of treatment to a psychotherapist who is now Daoud’s wife. She accused Daoud of then using the details narrated during their therapy sessions in his book.
Publishers Gallimard however said Daoud and his wife were the victims of orchestrated attacks after the banning of the book in Algeria, adding that the publishing house had also been banned from Algeria’s main book fair earlier this month.
“Although Houris is inspired by tragic events that occurred in Algeria during the civil war of the 1990s, its plot, characters and heroine are purely fictional,” said publisher Antoine Gallimard who heads the Gallimard publishing house.
“Since the publication of his novel, Kamel Daoud has been the subject of violent defamatory campaigns orchestrated by certain media close to a regime whose nature is well known,” he added.
Arbane has alleged that she told the psychotherapist not to reveal her story but has found that there are details in the life of the main character in the book — Aube — that would only have been known to the doctor.
Speaking on television with a speech aid, she has described the book as a “violation of my intimacy” and accused the psychotherapist of going back on a promise that her story would not feature in Daoud’s work.
But Gallimard said: “It is now the turn of his wife — who in no way is a source for ‘Houris’ — to be attacked over her professional integrity.”
Daoud, who used to work as a journalist and columnist in Algeria, has stirred controversy with his analyzes of society in Algeria and elsewhere in the Arab world in French and international media.

Topics: France Algeria Kamel Daoud

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Associated Press to lay off 8 percent of staff

Updated 19 November 2024
Reuters
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Associated Press to lay off 8 percent of staff

  • Move is part of efforts to modernize its operations and products
Updated 19 November 2024
Reuters

LONDON: The Associated Press said on Monday it would lay off about 8 percent of its workforce as it looks to modernize its operations and products.
The news publisher said affected employees will be notified over the next few weeks. It will offer a voluntary separation plan to a small number of eligible staff, based on department, role and tenure.
The Associated Press has reached a tentative agreement — subject to ratification — with the News Media Guild to extend this offer to some union staff in the US.
Under the agreement, a maximum of 116 people in the editorial unit and five people in the technology unit would be eligible for a voluntary buyout package, News Media Guild administrator Tony Winton said in an emailed response.
Founded in 1846 as a news cooperative, the Associated Press has journalists in nearly 100 countries and in all 50 US states, according to its website.
“We are taking proactive steps, including making some staff reductions, as we focus on meeting the evolving needs of our customers,” AP said in a statement.
The news publisher’s CEO Daisy Veerasingham said in a memo to employees that those eligible for the voluntary plan will be notified by the end of the day.
AP was among the first news organizations to sign a deal with OpenAI. It had licensed a part of its archive of news stories to the ChatGPT-maker last year, setting a precedent for similar partnerships.

Topics: Associated Press

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