Turkish President Erdogan arrived in Croatia, where he was received with the highest honors. The capital city Zagreb was blocked in his honor, and everyone pretends that everything is great.
In the report on the media freedom index, on which Turkey fell again this year, RSF emphasized that “authoritarianism is gaining ground in Turkey, challenging media pluralism”, “all possible means are being used to undermine critics” and that 90 percent of the national media is now under government control.
Turkey is infamous to imprison journalists, so at the moment there are 38 journalists in prison, last year 241 journalists were tried, 73 journalists were detained, one radio host was killed, and 155 journalists were physically attacked. In Turkey, not only media freedom is under attack, but also many other democratic processes, human rights, and the right to freedom.
In Turkey, it is common to prosecute journalists, so right now a dear colleague and EFJ vice-president Mustafa Kuleli is blacklisted and under threat. In Turkey the media is being shut down, journalists’ passes are being taken away, financial pressure is being put on “disobedient” media, and with the help of state institutions, critical media are economically weakened.
We consider the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be a despot who has ruled Turkey for 20 years and a man who deals with human rights defenders and opposition politicians in the manner of the worst regimes, and the special target of his autocratic way of the ruling are our Turkish colleagues, whom his regime arrests, beats, imprisons and sentences to several years in prison.
It is unacceptable that the highest representatives of the Republic of Croatia, President Zoran Milanović, will meet with such a man, at whose invitation the Turkish President is coming to Croatia, as well as Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. We doubt that the Croatian representatives will protest or at least object to the powerful Turkish ruler because of the persecution of journalists in Turkey and the suppression of all voices that warn of his undemocratic way of ruling.
As the Turkish president headed towards Pantovčak from the Sheraton, where he was staying, he was escorted along the route by the head of the Croatian Journalists’ Union (SNH) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Maja Sever, protesting the imprisonment of Turkish journalists and treatment of the media in Turkey.
“A great man once said – the fact that there are few of us at the protest does not mean that we are not right,” said Sever and continued: “The problem is not the blocked streets, the problem is Erdogan. There are currently 38 journalists in prison in Turkey, last year 241 journalists were tried, 73 journalists were detained, one radio presenter was killed. 155 journalists were physically attacked.” EFJ also shared Maja Sever’s protest against Erdogan on Twitter. The president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association, Hrvoje Zovko, also joined the protest.
The Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) considers the fact that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming to Croatia, a despot who has ruled Turkey for 20 years and a man who, in the manner of the worst regimes, deals with human rights defenders and opposition politicians, and is a special target of his autocratic way of ruling are our Turkish colleagues, whom his regime arrests, beats, imprisons and sentences to multi-year prison sentences.
It seems that Croatian politicians do not bother too much with the reports of organizations such as Amnesty International, which systematically records the cruel way of ruling the Turkish president. We note with regret that they show that they are not really interested in democratic standards, says Hrvoje Zovko on behalf of the Croatian Journalists’ Association.