SYDNEY: The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) has sent a letter of protest to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph for providing Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim an uncritical platform in an Op-Ed titled: - “Turkey looks back with pride and anger” to white-wash Turkey’s further descent into political oppression and attacks on democracy in Turkey after last year’s attempted coup.
Yildirim's article, which appeared in the News Limited newspaper last week, was the Prime Minister reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the coup attempt in his country. It focused on his accusations on the perpetrator oppositionists as a preface to praise his country's "democracy".
ANC-AU's letter slammed that such a platform was being allowed to a regime that is floating further from democracy, faster than any other.
It reads: "While Prime Minister Yildirim is allowed to wax lyrically about 'democracy' in Turkey, his government’s authoritarianism (which was woeful before the coup attempt) has sunken to new depths after the coup attempt. The facts and statistics are appalling: - 229 journalists have been arrested, 149 media outlets have been shut down, 4,424 judges and prosecutors have been dismissed and 8,271 academics have lost their jobs because of suspected affiliation with the exiled Turkish Muslim Cleric Gullen. Numerous Turkish Opposition MPs have been arrested, including the leaders of one of the main opposition parties."
"Amnesty International has reported that there is evidence of torture of the detainees. Even Amnesty International itself has not escape the wrath of Erdogan’s/Yildirim’s AKP with Idil Eser, the director of Amnesty International’s Turkish branch and the chairman of the branch’s board, Taner Kilic being, recently arrested themselves."
The letter also says: "We trust that the irony was not lost on The Daily Telegraph when they decided to give Prime Minister Yildirim an uncritical platform for his despotic government, while hundreds of their fellow journalists are sitting (and most likely being tortured) in Turkish jails."
The full ANC-AU letter to the Editor is pasted below:
The Editor
The Daily Telegraph
[address]
Dear Editor
Re: Uncritical Platform for Turkish PM Questioned
Whilst the first anniversary of the attempted (yet another) military coup in Turkey ought to have been noted by The Daily Telegraph, we seriously question the wisdom and appropriateness of the Editors providing Turkish PM Yildirim an uncritical platform to gloss over his government’s appalling human rights violations and political oppression post the coup attempt and to target his political (AKP) party’s opponents outside of Turkey, including those in Australia.
While Prime Minister Yildirim is allowed to wax lyrically about “democracy” in Turkey, his government’s authoritarianism (which was woeful before the coup attempt) has sunken to new depths after the coup attempt. The facts and statistics are appalling: - 229 journalists have been arrested, 149 media outlets have been shut down, 4,424 judges and prosecutors have been dismissed and 8,271 academics have lost their jobs because of suspected affiliation with the exiled Turkish Muslim Cleric Gullen. Numerous Turkish Opposition MPs have been arrested, including the leaders of one of the main opposition parties.
Amnesty International has reported that there is evidence of torture of the detainees. Even Amnesty International itself has not escape the wrath of Erdogan’s/Yildirim’s AKP with Idil Eser, the director of Amnesty International’s Turkish branch and the chairman of the branch’s board, Taner Kilic being, recently arrested themselves.
We trust that the irony was not lost on The Daily Telegraph when they decided to give Prime Minister Yildirim an uncritical platform for his despotic government, while hundreds of their fellow journalists are sitting (and most likely being tortured) in Turkish jails.
Not satisfied with arresting, imprisoning and torturing political opponents in Turkey, it seems that the sub-text of Yildirim’s Op-Ed in The Daily Telegraph is an ominous message to the followers of Turkish Muslim Cleric Gullen in Australia.
Then again, why worry about world public opinion in relation to the arrest, incarceration and torture of the trifling amount of a few hundreds or thousands of journalists and political opponents, when you have got away with impunity the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians (and hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Greeks and Assyrians) for over a hundred years, right?
We trust that this is only an error in judgement by the Editors of The Daily Telegraph which will not be repeated and that an equal opportunity will be given in the pages of The Daily Telegraph to those human rights activists, democratic political opponents and critical journalists whose voices are being trampled in Turkey today.
Yours sincerely
[signed]
Vache Kahramanian
Managing Director
Binali Yildirim's article is pasted below:
