http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/world/europe/turkish-leader-traces-a-new-internal-threat-the-way-hes-drawn.html?ref=world&_r=0
ISTANBUL — In the cartoon, an image of Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands watch while two thieves empty a safe full of cash. “No need to rush,” one of the thieves says with a grin. “We have a holographic watchman,” he adds.
ISTANBUL — In the cartoon, an image of Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands watch while two thieves empty a safe full of cash. “No need to rush,” one of the thieves says with a grin. “We have a holographic watchman,” he adds.
The message in the cartoon, published in February in Cumhuriyet,
an opposition newspaper, was unmistakable, coming as members of the
Turkish leader’s inner circle were targeted in a corruption
investigation.
Mr.
Erdogan was not amused. The offending cartoonist, Musa Kart, who had a
history of drawing cartoons critical of Mr. Erdogan, was taken to court
on charges of insulting the prime minister (now the president),
violating the privacy of an investigation and committing libel. Mr. Kart
was acquitted in October, leaving him free, for the moment — Mr.
Erdogan’s lawyer has appealed the decision — to keep challenging
authority with his caricatures of Turkey’s rich and powerful.
“This
repetitive cycle of legal actions affects all cartoonists, writers,
intellectuals in this country,” Mr. Kart said. “We will continue to work
and express what we think for the good of our future generations.”
But
the episode points to an increasingly difficult environment for
editorial cartoonists, who have long been a staple of Turkey’s political
culture, as Mr. Erdogan has shown less tolerance for criticism and
dissent. Critics of Mr. Erdogan and his government have found themselves
embroiled in criminal lawsuits while dozens have lost their jobs —
victims, critics say, of government efforts to intimidate dissidents.
Cartoonists
continue to publish their work in a range of independent publications
and have branched out into social media. But they are worried about what
they see as an increasingly oppressive political climate.
“As
long as I’ve been aware, there has always been some form of pressure on
writers and illustrators,” said Aslan Ozdemir, the editor of Leman,
a pioneer of Turkish political cartoon magazines. “Today, we feel the
same pressure, but it has changed its face. It might not be the threat
of imprisonment as we saw during the 1980 military coup, but it’s an air of oppression by the civilian government.”
Mr.
Kart, who faced a libel suit by Mr. Erdogan in 2004, had been left
alone in recent years in his hard-hitting critiques of the government.
In 2011, when Mr. Erdogan cracked down on peaceful environmental protests, Mr. Kart depicted him with a hand-shaped tongue spraying tear gas below the title “political discourse.”
In
another panel in August of the same year, he mocked Turkey’s Syria
policy, depicting Mr. Erdogan and the foreign minister as figures on a
Foosball table, declaring their autonomy, but controlled by a hand
draped in an American flag.
But
Mr. Kart’s cartoon targeting the corruption investigation, which Mr.
Erdogan has characterized as an attempt by a rival Islamic group to
overthrow his government, appeared to be the final straw. The
investigation, which resulted in the resignations of three ministers, was seen as one of the most serious threats to Mr. Erdogan’s rule in more than a decade.
To
many proponents of news media freedom, the legal action against Mr.
Kart — he faced nearly 10 years in prison on the charges — was a warning
to cartoonists that they were not safe from government retaliation.
“The
extension of judicial harassment to caricaturists is indicative of the
increasing disregard for the right to freedom of expression in the
country,” said Alev Yaman, a researcher on Turkey for PEN International, a London-based media rights organization.
“Turkey
has a long and rich tradition of political satire,” Ms. Yaman added.
“This case not only represents an attack on free speech but also a
betrayal of Turkey’s artistic and democratic heritage.”
Mr.
Kart’s case was taken up by cartoonists worldwide in a Twitter campaign
after Martin Rowson, a Guardian writer and cartoonist, appealed for caricatures of Mr. Erdogan.
A
protester’s questioning by the police after holding up a cartoon that
appeared in The International New York Times in December has also raised
concerns about media freedoms. The cartoon,
by Patrick Chappatte, showed Mr. Erdogan slicing meat from a vertical
spit emblazoned with a Turkish flag with the word “DEMOCRACY” on it.
Bayram
Ali Hanedar, 29, a mathematics teacher, who held up the cartoon at the
protest, said he had been questioned by police on suspicion of insulting
the Turkish flag. If charged and convicted, Mr. Hanedar faces up to
three years in prison.
“It
had absolutely nothing to do with slicing up the Turkish flag,” Mr.
Hanedar said. “It was about raids on media organizations, tearing
Turkish democracy apart.”
Turkish editorial cartoonists have long found ways to thrive in challenging political environments.
GirGir,
one of the first Turkish cartoon magazines, had a circulation of more
than 500,000 under the junta that took power in 1980 despite being shut
down for a month in 1981. A large publishing group bought the magazine
in 1989, but faced with declining circulation, the magazine closed in
1993.
Today,
many cartoon magazines in Turkey are small, independent and privately
owned, sometimes by their contributors, which gives them a financial
freedom that publications in the mainstream media do not have.
Leading titles include Leman, Uykusuz and Penguen, which has championed Mr. Kart.
When Mr. Erdogan took Mr. Kart to court in 2004 for a cartoon depicting the leader as a cat,
Penguen later produced an issue in which Mr. Erdogan was caricatured as
various animals, landing the publisher, Selcuk Erdem, in court on
defamation charges.
Charges
in both cases were eventually dropped. Mithat Ali Kabaali, the judge
who heard Mr. Kart’s case, said in his ruling that the job of a
politician included being prepared for criticism as well as praise.
Mr.
Erdem said Penguen could afford to take risks because it did not rely
on advertising or government permission to invest in other industries,
unlike major publishing groups targeted by Mr. Erdogan.
“While
media bosses worry about tenders in publicly funded projects, we don’t
even run any advertisements,” said Mr. Erdem, who is also an editor and
contributor at the magazine. “When there is no money involved, there is
more freedom, which readers notice and turn to us as the mass media
collapse and go quiet.”
Local news channels and mainstream publications initially ignored the antigovernment protests
in June 2013. Social media like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook proved
instrumental as alternative news sources and as a way for protesters to
vent their frustrations, leading the security services to shut down
YouTube for two months and Twitter for two weeks.
But
the cartoon magazines also helped fill the void. Leman, for example,
printed special protest editions. Circulation surged for some magazines.
From an average of 55,000 copies a week, Penguen’s circulation peaked
at 80,000 during the protests.
“We
were there to express anger and frustration that is not easily
translated into words,” Mr. Erdem said. “We like to formalize feelings,
to be the voice of our readers.”
For
Mr. Kart, that frustration with the system was encapsulated by his day
in court, which came just a week after all 96 suspects in the corruption
investigation he criticized in his cartoon were acquitted. Critics say
the acquittals resulted from a government-led restructuring of the
judiciary and a purge of the prosecutors involved in the investigation.
“I
feel like we are in a cartoon now,” Mr. Kart said in his testimony,
adding that he had no intention of insulting anyone. “I must say it is
quite funny that while all charges against the corruption suspects have
been dropped, I am the only one here standing accused.”
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