On the issue of arrested journalists, no matter from which side you look at it, it is as what we say "hearsays make it worse than what really happens"
Claims that can be falsified with simple and short research are treated as an absolute knowledge with ease. We have pointed out how the orientalist approach in the west can turn into a lustful buyer for such cheap information regarding Turkey and AKP.
Undoubtedly the local orientalists who feel this lust will boost it and it"s even more typical that they will do the service with an appeal of lust in a completely opportunistic manner. As a result, we are confronting with such hearsays that we are unsure where to start fixing it.
The original argument which these hearsays produce or nurture is that AKP or the Prime Minister have been afflicted with the fear of self-criticism that is essential to dictators.
To an extent that supposedly because the government is so fearful of criticism, the prime minister orders that any critical journalist be arrested, if not then gets him fired from his job and shuts down social media mediums such as Twitter and YouTube for the abundance of criticism against himself.
In my previous article on Yeni Safak, with a simple look on the last report, we proved the real list of the arrested journalists which the Freedom House jumped on it like a lustful one as pleased as punch.
Apart from the fact that 15 of the names mentioned in the list have been released already, and none of the rest has the reason of arrest because of their ideas or articles.
As a matter of fact, it"s not AKP who arrested them or judged them or charged them but the judiciary which they praised it to the skies nowadays.
Even taking their word granted, the bill of crime is so grossly large that includes every kind of it which ranges from murder to rape, robbery, usurpation, bomb attack, military assaults. The only thing that is missing in this crime list is journalism or ideas. Despite all this clarity, somehow they make themselves an "arrested journalists" out of this list who committed to aforementioned offences, crimes.
On the other side, if we look at the 13 year old trajectory of AKP, we are bound say that it"s the last of all to put the libel "fearful of criticism" on. For one thing, if the criticism is constructive, AKP knows very well how to take advantage of it in its most efficient way.
Otherwise, we can easily say that even destructive criticisms driven by malevolent people have played a very functional role in AKP"s success until today.
What is more, AKP since its foundation has never been supported by the mainstream media until now. Therefore, it never has owed its success to the media. To the contrary, the mainstream media has never held itself back from every type of opposition to it.
As a matter of fact, when looked through the glasses of this media and critics, Turkey and AKP have always been misread.
Speaking retrospectively, I urge you to take a look at what this media anticipated about the result at every eve of the last 10 elections. It"s a rare irony that despite many times of failure this is the still mainstream media. Certainly this has its own eco-political dynamics behind it. If only we looked at Twitter a day before the last election, one would even anticipate that AKP decreases down the level of 30%.
In a way, if AKP owes anything to this media, we admit an advantage of their contribution through such irrational attacks and criticism. That is, they are so far away from Turkey and the people of Turkey that their attacks are getting the people closer to Recep Tayyip Erdogan and AKP.
Thus, even if there were no principal cause (but in fact there is), from only this pure aspect, we may consider AKP governance to be continuous with the assurance of these types of criticism.
Let us ask ourselves a reasonable and logical question: Why would Erdogan think of gagging the opposition? The more they attack, the more he himself and his party wins.
This has become an evident reality. No one who knows the abc of Turkey would miss understanding this fact and yet it"s another fact that some people are still blind to see this.
Perhaps for this reason, they might be assuming Erdogan and his party are scared of their criticism. Furthermore, there are also those who know the truth as it is and yet they consciously distort it. While in a medium where they can criticize the prime minister and government using all types of criticism even to the extent of insult so comfortably, they reflect the situation as a "pressure of the freedom of speech and thought".
Since we are talking about the pressure of thought, there must be an explanation the Gülenist media must give who brings the topic very often nowadays.
As far as current cases are concerned, around 1500 journalists, academics and politicians are required to testify because of the litigations made by Fethullah Gülen with excessive compensatory and punitive damages.
We cannot guess what the result of these litigations will be but this it is evident that this high frequency of litigations outweighs any other example on the issue of "the pressure of freedom of speech and thought". However, there is a huge and broad media network belonging to Gülen. He may respond to criticism by via of them or his pupils may and they are doing so. However, he is not satisfied with that and so never neglects going to the court and so is promised to deal with anyone who lays a finger on him.
As my friend Hakan Albayrak raised the question: Fethullah Gülen, being intolerant of any criticism currently leading as the head of a civil movement, may God forbid – how would he act if he were the authority in the government?
So let us ask again, who is scared of criticisms, oppositions?
