Oil on the Flames

The conflict between the AKP government and the Turkish media giant Doğan is escalating. The bone of contention is critical reporting on a charity donation scandal in Germany involving high-ranking AKP members, which is causing a ripple effect throughout the media. Ömer Erzeren reports from Istanbul

The mud-slinging between the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the media tycoon and industrialist Aydın Doğan began not long ago. For over a week, the Turkish Prime Minister issued a barrage of personal attacks on Doğan. He portrayed him as a heartless capitalist pressurising the government for business gains. The Doğan media's anti-government reporting was an attempt at blackmail, Erdoğan claimed.

Doğan's "gunslingers"

In reality, the prime minister asserted, Doğan wanted a construction permit for the Hilton site in Istanbul he now owns, and a licence for terrestrial frequencies for the CNN channel. He referred to the journalists working for Doğan media as "Doğan's gunslingers". Erdoğan even called for a boycott of Doğan's newspapers and magazines.

AKP parliamentarians went one step further, with the member of parliament Kemal Göktas venting his spleen at a party meeting: "I wouldn't be surprised if Aydın Doğan was arrested at 6 o'clock in the morning one day and taken to the police station in handcuffs."

Aydın Doğan, 72, scented an "attitude like under Saddam Hussein". He was taken entirely by surprise by the prime minister's attacks. The applications for construction of the Hilton Hotel and the frequency licence for CNN-Türk were perfectly normal legal applications, he said, standard procedure for a large conglomerate.

He accused the prime minister of trying to put a gag on critical journalism. Journalists' associations were also outraged at Erdoğan's comments.

Even the liberal newspaper Radikal, part of the Doğan press and known for its moderate headlines, which features columnists close to the governing AKP, lost patience with the government. The paper ran a photo of the Nazi book-burnings on the front page, under the headline: "The Footsteps of Fascism".

The Lighthouse case

The bone of contention was a charity donation scandal in Germany, which newspapers and TV channels from the Doğan Group had picked up on, featuring detailed reports.

Three Turkish citizens have been sentenced to prison terms for fraud in a Frankfurt court. They had collected donations for the Islamic charity "Deniz Feneri" (Lighthouse) from Turks living in Germany and illegally transferred millions of euros to Turkey.

The main defendant, Mehmet Gürhan, has since been sentenced to five years and nine months' imprisonment. The recipients of the money and those who pulled the strings, however, are still in Turkey – in top positions in the media.

Zahid Akman, a former newsreader for the AKP-friendly TV station Kanal 7, is now Chairman of the Turkish radio and television council (RTÜK, Radyo Televizyon Üst Kurulu). He is accused of transporting the donations from the Lighthouse organisation to Kanal 7 as a courier.

Zekeriya Karaman, once Gürhan's partner, is now the head of Kanal 7. Akman and Karaman are close fellow travellers of Prime Minister Erdoğan.

A further investigation is pending against Akman in Germany, this time for fraud and protraction of insolvency proceedings. Both Gürhan, found guilty in Frankfurt, and Akman were on the board of the housing cooperative "Offenbacher und Frankfurter Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft", which is suspected of embezzling the savings and state homebuilding subsidies of 1300 Turkish investors in Germany.

Backing up Erdoğan's attacks

It was Kanal 7 that ran advertisements for the housing cooperative. A particularly interesting detail is that the media suspected of being on the receiving end of the donations from Germany are now backing up the prime minister's attacks on the Doğan media group.

However, the scandal was only the straw that broke the camel's back, not the actual cause of the conflict. In fact, the dominance of the Doğan Group in the media sector is a thorn in the side of the ruling AKP. The Turkish media are very highly concentrated.

A study by the Turkish cartel office carried out last year illustrates the extent of this concentration. In the TV sector, the Doğan Group (including the national channels Kanal D and Star) has a market share of 45.9 percent. The Çalık Group (including the nationwide channel ATV and the newspaper Sabah) holds 22.9 percent and the Çukurova Group (Show TV) 16.4 percent. The state broadcaster TRT struggles past the post with a share of only 3.3 percent.

The same conglomerates have also divided the print market up between them. 85 percent of advertising income in the media sector – with a total volume of some two billion euro – goes to the Doğan and Çalık Groups.

The main profits to be made for these groups come not from the media, but in other sectors such as banking, energy and construction. And the concentrated power of the media has always been used to defend business interests. The Doğan Group owns the POAS refinery, with a market value of almost 2.5 billion dollars.

War on Istanbul's major capitalists

The recent attacks on Aydın Doğan are the start of a war on Istanbul's major capitalists declared by the ruling AKP, says the political scientist Hasan Bülent Kahraman.

In fact, it is plain that the AKP is attempting to break the Doğan Group's dominance and give companies more favourable to its government a leg-up into positions of power in the media.

The media alliance Merkez was forcibly requisitioned by the bank deposit protection fund TMSF in 2007, a highly controversial step, and placed under temporary financial supervision by the state. Following a flood of litigation and an ultimate agreement with the former owner Turgay Ciner, large parts of the media alliance were put up for sale.

In December 2007, the Sabah-ATV media alliance was sold to the Çalık conglomerate for 1.1 billion dollars, with state banks granting generous credit for the deal. Çalık was previously active mainly in the energy, textile, construction and finance sectors.

Serhat Albayrak was appointed as head of the media group – the brother of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan's son-in-law. And unlike the Doğan media, the new Sabah tends to stick to remarkably loyal reporting on the AKP – just as the prime minister likes it.

Ömer Erzeren

Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire

Qantara.de

Human Rights Situation in Turkey
Freedom of Opinion Closely Restricted
Although Turkey is making an effort to comply with the EU's requirements on human rights, there has been few changes as yet to the traditionally authoritarian concept of the state, says Amke Dietert

The Media in Turkey
When in Doubt, Censor The Press
Although the Erdogan government has largely liberalised Turkish criminal law in preparation for negotiations on accession to the European Union, Turkish journalists still find themselves severely restricted in their freedom of expression. Ömer Erzeren reports

Hürriyet's European Edition
Turkish Newspaper Already Part of Europe
With a daily circulation of 600,000, Hürriyet is Turkey's largest newspaper. The paper's European edition prints some 100,000 copies - most of which are sold in Germany. Suzanne Cords reports