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Whose turn will be next?
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It was a slogan shared by millions in this country during the Susurluk case. We were all turning lights on and off in our houses exactly at 9 p.m. every night, meeting at city squares with candles in our hands, holding placards reading "Don’t remain silent ... If you remain silent, your turn will come as well!"
At the time millions were protesting a gang (composed of politicians, bureaucrats, police officers and underground figures and which was exposed to the pubic with a traffic accident just outside the Susurluk town) within the state that was believed to be responsible for hundreds of mystery killings and disappearances while the deputy prime minister of the time, a blond lady, was proudly declaring at Parliament rostrum that those who die for the state and those who kill for the state were both heroes. On the other hand, the prime minister of the time, the then leader of the political Islam known with the reputation of "Hodja" was condemning the protests as "bulls...t."
It was an unprecedented mass protest by the nation, but the Susurluk case somehow closed down with some scapegoats being placed behind bars. Nowadays, there are efforts to re-open the case within the framework of the Ergenekon trial as well as through bringing the then top cop of the country, former minister Mehmet Ağar, in front of justice.
The "Don’t remain silent ... If you remain silent, your turn will come as well!" slogan was one strongly influenced from the "First they came" poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892 to 1984). That famous poem, on which I last wrote on in this column on Jan. 9, 2009, was about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
Time to speak up!
It is as simple as that. Remaining silent to a crime makes a person an accomplice of that crime, even though the person did not actively partake in that crime. Worst, if one assumes that he has the luxury of remaining inactive to an injustice because he is not affected from that unjust development, eventually he may find out that when he himself become the victim of the same injustice there might not be anyone left to speak out.
Doğan Media Group (of which the Daily News is a member) was shocked this week with a fine imposed on it by the Finance Ministry. Although the Doğan group documented that it sold 25 percent of the shares of Doğan TV to the German Axel Springer on Jan. 2, 2007, the Finance Ministry imposed on Doğan a 869 million Turkish Liras ($500 million) fine and charged that the holding was involved in tax evasion (a charge that annihilates the probability of Doğan negotiating a deal with the ministry over the fine) on grounds that the sale was done three months earlier, in 2006, but was reported in 2007 and thus the state lost in tax revenues.
Since the sale was documented in Doğan’s books and since the actual handover of shares indeed took place on Jan. 2, 2007 and since under current Turkish laws share sales are exempt from value added tax, the charges are all baseless and eventually hopefully will be declared as such by the court. What the ministry is trying to do under instructions from the government (Doğan records were started to be investigated three days after the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, was filed with the Constitutional Court while the announcement) is not to punish the Doğan group but to extinguish it all together, as was done earlier against the Uzan and the Dinç Bilgin groups, and party done against the Karamehmet group.
Except the Star TV of the Uzans, both Uzan and Bilgin group media were being taken over by people in allegiance with the AKP government and they were converted into partisan media. Now, the target of AKP is to kill the Doğan group and the henchmen are acting on orders of the government, while the prime minister is calling on the nation at every opportunity not to let the media critical of him and his government into their homes.
Today, it is Doğan Media Group’s turn to be eradicated, or at least silenced. Who knows who and which media outlet will be placed on the bull’s eye next. And, the premier is still boasting that Turkey has advanced and is no longer a country where journalists, writers were persecuted. Worst, there are still people in Turkey and abroad who still believe in this bad joke and can talk about a democrat prime minister, a democratic governance in Turkey!
It was an unprecedented mass protest by the nation, but the Susurluk case somehow closed down with some scapegoats being placed behind bars. Nowadays, there are efforts to re-open the case within the framework of the Ergenekon trial as well as through bringing the then top cop of the country, former minister Mehmet Ağar, in front of justice.
The "Don’t remain silent ... If you remain silent, your turn will come as well!" slogan was one strongly influenced from the "First they came" poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892 to 1984). That famous poem, on which I last wrote on in this column on Jan. 9, 2009, was about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
Time to speak up!
It is as simple as that. Remaining silent to a crime makes a person an accomplice of that crime, even though the person did not actively partake in that crime. Worst, if one assumes that he has the luxury of remaining inactive to an injustice because he is not affected from that unjust development, eventually he may find out that when he himself become the victim of the same injustice there might not be anyone left to speak out.
Doğan Media Group (of which the Daily News is a member) was shocked this week with a fine imposed on it by the Finance Ministry. Although the Doğan group documented that it sold 25 percent of the shares of Doğan TV to the German Axel Springer on Jan. 2, 2007, the Finance Ministry imposed on Doğan a 869 million Turkish Liras ($500 million) fine and charged that the holding was involved in tax evasion (a charge that annihilates the probability of Doğan negotiating a deal with the ministry over the fine) on grounds that the sale was done three months earlier, in 2006, but was reported in 2007 and thus the state lost in tax revenues.
Since the sale was documented in Doğan’s books and since the actual handover of shares indeed took place on Jan. 2, 2007 and since under current Turkish laws share sales are exempt from value added tax, the charges are all baseless and eventually hopefully will be declared as such by the court. What the ministry is trying to do under instructions from the government (Doğan records were started to be investigated three days after the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, was filed with the Constitutional Court while the announcement) is not to punish the Doğan group but to extinguish it all together, as was done earlier against the Uzan and the Dinç Bilgin groups, and party done against the Karamehmet group.
Except the Star TV of the Uzans, both Uzan and Bilgin group media were being taken over by people in allegiance with the AKP government and they were converted into partisan media. Now, the target of AKP is to kill the Doğan group and the henchmen are acting on orders of the government, while the prime minister is calling on the nation at every opportunity not to let the media critical of him and his government into their homes.
Today, it is Doğan Media Group’s turn to be eradicated, or at least silenced. Who knows who and which media outlet will be placed on the bull’s eye next. And, the premier is still boasting that Turkey has advanced and is no longer a country where journalists, writers were persecuted. Worst, there are still people in Turkey and abroad who still believe in this bad joke and can talk about a democrat prime minister, a democratic governance in Turkey!
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