I woke up to the news that the satellite service provider Digiturk has removed 7 TV channels from its line-up.  Apparently a state prosecutor’s office has relayed a court order towards this end citing crimes against the constitutional order (i.e. terrorism). Kanaltürk, Samanyolu TV, Mehtap TV, S Haber, Bugun TV, Yumurcak TV and Irmak TV had previously been removed from other digital platforms for the same reason.  And all of this is happening 3 weeks before the critical parliamentary elections.

There was an outcry that this is censorship (and it is).  But, there is no point in discussing freedom of press or speech when access to TV channels can be prevented with a simple court order from a prosecutor’s office.  To the best of my knowledge, there were no court proceedings on the alleged crimes against the constitutional order.  This court order is something like a “warrant” -as far as I can understand.

I am not familiar with all of these channels, but I know that they are affiliated with the Gulen movement.  Those who are familiar with Turkish politics would know much about the movement.  For those who aren’t, let it suffice to say that this is a religious group that allied with AKP until recently.  The two became rivals due to power struggles and AKP explicitly targeted schools, prep courses and other interests of the movement.  They branded them as enemies of the state aiming at undermining the system, calling them the “parallel structure.”  Gulen movement responded by criticizing its former ally AKP and its leader Erdogan through its sizable media network.  This network includes newspapers, magazines, radio and TV channels.  It is this group of TV channels that got the axe.

Undermining these TV channels is obviously political, it is the latest move by the AKP government to undermine the Gulen movement by removing important propaganda tools and income generators (ad revenue) from its disposal.  As such, this is political censorship and it is nothing new.  The more important aspect of these channels getting the axe is what their role in the upcoming elections was expected to be.

There are only a few opposition media organizations left in Turkey, Gulen media had recently joined this group. The rest of the media is willingly or unwillingly under strict control of the government, they allow the government control and shape public opinion by having their headlines dictated by the government.  In the 2014 local/municipal elections (March 30) and the 2015 parliamentary elections (June 7), election reporting proved to be very critical.

It became obvious in the elections of these two years that AKP has reached its limits in terms of votes and that it has been in a regression due to factors like corruption scandals, worsening economy, and Erdogan’s ambitions towards becoming a sultan president.  AKP is suspected of attempting to change the tides in favor of itself AFTER the elections, during the tallying of the votes.  There were blatant irregularities in the local elections, which did not get investigated (no surprises, as the state’s election board is under government control).  Some of these irregularities concerned reporting of the results, government media and opposition media giving different results, government trying to block opposition media’s access, declaring wins in close races as in Ankara, etc.  These issues with the media tainted the elections, raising suspicion about the results.

Citizens started grassroots activism to take control of what happens at the polling sites and during tallying (e.g. Oy ve Otesi/ Vote and Beyond).  They emphasized not leaving the ballot boxes/tallying even if the news reports showed AKP was winning.  In the June 2015 general elections, this involvement minimized opportunities of irregularities AFTER votes were cast and AKP suffered for it.  Tactics such as delaying reporting results from the pro-Kurdish HDP strongholds in the Southeast were employed to no avail.

Axing part of the opposition media will allow AKP to control the information flow after the elections.  The most recent local and general elections showed that this information flow in the 12 hours after ballots close are critical in terms of opportunities for fraud. If this is the game the government is playing 3 weeks before the elections, I am afraid the elections will be rife with irregularities (or attempts at it).  The responsibility of keeping them free and fair will be on the shoulders of citizen organizations and the remaining opposition media.

Welcome to democracy, Turkish style.  Or whatever is left of it.