CARTOONISTS RIGHTS NETWORK INTERNATIONAL

Op ed: Musa Kart & #FreeTurkeyMedia

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On UNESCO’s  World Press Freedom Day and in conjunction with Amnesty International’s #FreeTurkeyMedia campaign CRNI focuses on the plight of imprisoned cartoonist Musa Kart in an op ed for Time Magazine. The full text follows.

Since the attack at Charlie Hebdo magazine’s office in Paris in January 2015 cartoonists have in many ways become emblematic of the struggle to defend the inalienable right to freedom of expression.

Cartoonists’ stock in trade is to satirize, mock and even to insult the ideas and values of others. As such, they will be among the first to feel the ire of those parts of society who are most sensitive, sometimes with good reason, as might be the case with minority groups. However if those in power are overly thin-skinned, cartoonists can find themselves in danger. Often they have been described as “canaries in the coal mine”, meaning if you live in a country where cartoonists can lampoon the government without interruption, you may rest assured of your good fortune to live in a (relatively) healthy democracy. If they have been censured then that may be taken as the first symptom of a deeper problem. Such was the case with Turkey, its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and celebrated cartoonist Musa Kart.

Kart’s woes began in 2005 when then Prime Minister Erdoğan sued him and the Cumhuriyet newspaper over a 2004 cartoon that depicted the politician as a kitten ensnared in a ball of wool. The complaint of “public humiliation” was upheld and minor financial damages awarded. However the Supreme Court later overturned the decision, sending the case back to the lower court, where it was dismissed.

In 2014, following Erdoğan’s notorious appearance as a giant hologram at a public event, Kart penned another cartoon that showed him as an insubstantial figure turning a blind eye to malfeasance. Erdoğan took him to court the following year, this time seeking a nine-year sentence for “insulting [him] though publication and slander”. The case had barely gone to trial when it fell apart, and judges dismissed it. Kart had gotten away with it again.

Cartoonists around the world took to their drawing boards in solidarity and the hashtag #caricatureerdogan trended on social media, perhaps sowing the seeds of the Turkish leader’s seemingly permanent dispute with Twitter.

In the ensuing period the crackdown against those accused of insulting the president and causing offence broadened out to an industrial scale. It has been widely reported that at one point nearly 2,000 individual complaints against writers, comedians, journalists, cartoonists, poets and others were being investigated. Even foreign governments such as those of Germany and the Netherlands were pressured to co-operate.

Then came the summer of 2016, an attempted coup and, in its aftermath, a supposed gesture of supreme magnanimity. President Erdoğan said: “For one time only, I will be forgiving and withdrawing all cases against the many disrespects and insults that have been levelled against me. I feel that if we do not make use of this opportunity correctly, then it will give people the right to hold us by the throat. So I feel that all fractions of society, politicians first and foremost, will behave accordingly with this new reality, this new sensitive situation before us.”

What the president meant by correct use of the opportunity turned out to be a dangerous slide towards authoritarianism. Many in Turkey saw the coup being used as a pretext to conflate principled opposition with treason. In the massive crackdown that followed, 47,000 people have been remanded in prison and more than 100,000 public sector employees have been summarily dismissed from their posts. Among those whose experiences have been likened to a ‘civil death’ are academics, teachers, judges, prosecutors, local government officials, police officers and army personnel. Journalists and media workers were not spared: more than 120 from all sections of dissenting media are in prison, some for eight months, pending their trial on some of the most serious charges under vague anti-terrorism laws. In fact, it is estimated that of all the journalists in prison around the world, a third are jailed in Turkey.

Among them are Musa Kart and 10 of his Cumhuriyet colleagues. After a police raid on his home on 31 October 2016 he reported to a police station and was taken into custody. He and his colleagues were held without charge for over five months. Finally, on 4 April , only days before the Turkish people narrowly voted in a referendum in favour of giving President Erdoğan even more sweeping powers, the government’s lawyers levelled charges of “abusing trust” and “helping an armed terrorist organisation without being a member”, carrying a maximum sentence of 29 years in prison. The 306-page indictment contains no solid evidence of these charges. The first hearing in the case is set on 24 July, by which time Musa Kart and his colleagues would have spent almost nine months in prison, a punishment in and of itself.

Musa Kart is far from being the only cartoonist, newspaper staffer, or government critic to have been victimized. But his story makes for a clear and instructive case study since, before the current crackdown, President Erdoğan tried and failed, time and again, to silence him over the course of a decade.

The great irony of cartooning is that the business of taking politics less seriously can result in such grave consequences for the practitioner. Cartoonists tend to resist the suggestion that they are in any way heroic but there is no denying the bravery of colleagues like Musa Kart. His troubles have inspired other cartoonists before and did so again this year, with cartoons both poignant and angry flooding in to the #FreeTurkeyMedia campaign organized by Amnesty International.

On World Press Freedom Day we should remember and honour Musa Kart, a genteel, professional cartoonist whose work indicates an even-handed satirical attitude. He is a reliable scrutineer of Turkey’s government and as such a trustworthy friend to its people. We call for his immediate release and that of all journalists jailed in Turkey simply for doing their jobs.

Terry Anderson, CRNI Board of Directors
Regional Representative (Northern Europe)

Amnesty International’s briefing, Journalism Is Not A Crime: crackdown on media freedom in Turkey, is available for download.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Sevinç Kart Speaks At European Parliament

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Today Sevinç Kart, wife of imprisoned cartoonist Musa Kart, was in the European Parliament at an event highlighting the desperate situation for press and media workers in Turkey. Her speech is below.

To Wake Up To The Same Day

Everyday we are waking up to the same day. It has been exactly 184 days today. Our relatives, who devoted their lives to independent and objective journalism, opposed to every terrorism with courage to live in a more democratic country have been jailed with absurd and unreasonable blames and are kept captive and in isolation.

Think of a newspaper that provides transportation every day of the week for one of its jailed journalist’s visitation. Every day, on the upper right hand corner of its first page it displays the photos of its jailed journalists and the number of days they have been away from their freedom, loved ones, and pens.

It is not very easy to describe our anger intertwined with sadness. Our children were compelled to mature quickly during this period.

Twelve years ago, the Prime Minister of the time took my husband, Musa Kart, to court because he had drawn him as a cat in his cartoon. Maybe, this was the first signal of the terrible situation we were about to come in terms of freedom of press and freedom of speech. Who knows…

As you know, Turkey is going through a very difficult and historic time. Instead of identifying the people involved in the 15 July 2016 coup attempt, including the political base, with a serious legal investigation, government transformed it into an opposition witch-hunt by declaring state of emergency.

The way my husband described this as “every possible opposition were thrown into a bag that was prepared well in advance” and a political operation was begun to silence the Cumhuriyet newspaper where my husband worked as a cartoonist for many years.

Cumhuriyet is an independent and objective newspaper grounded on secular, democratic, and human rights and freedom principles of publishing. It is a voice for people with no voice. That is why it has always suffered from pressures, conspiracies, and imprisonments during its publication history, but never conceded.

Tragically funny charges were brought in the indictment which was prepared five and a half month after the writers, artists, and managers of the paper were jailed. It was hard to find any legal concrete evidence. Journalistic activities were linked to terror organizations with fabricated conclusions, objective news was judged as efforts to make the government and the president look bad.

If you are not on my side you are a terrorist mentality destroyed the freedom of speech. The message given is: “You can’t publish the news I don’t want. You will pay immensely for your courage and opposition”. In summary, judicial mechanism today became the source of fear instead of justice. Without a free press and independent-judiciaries it is impossible to have a democratic and judicial state. Independent press is the strength of the democracy.

There is a saying that calm waters do not make master sailors. Waters in our country are never calm. As master journalists, they get their strength from the confidence to their work. We are proud of our relatives who perform their profession honestly and with self-respect.

The latest message that Musa sent from the jail was like this:

“After being jailed for nine months, we will be in front of a judge in 24 July 2017. In other words, first punishment then defense… If you don’t find this order unusual, you may think we are a judicial state. I have been drawing cartoons for 35 years. And they are asking 29 years of jail sentence for me. Yes. It is like a joke. Maybe, I deserve this punishment because I was not able to deliver such a jolting and punching laughter ever. Who knows…”

As the closest person witnessing Musa’s life, I could say that he performed his work with great enthusiasm and respect. He sketched every antidemocratic application, injustice, unlawfulness witnessed in every political administration without being afraid of and without giving up. In other words, he did what a humor master was supposed to do. But, this administration did not overlook humor and criticism and chose to punish intellectuals like Musa with their own methods. No other times, opposition and independent press encountered such heavy pressure and threat like today.

Last Friday was the open visitation day which happens once every two months. My two-and-a half year old granddaughter Deniz visited her grandfather in Silivri Jail. We tried to make hours long waiting at the control gates, in service vehicles, and waiting rooms a hide-and-seek game for Deniz. We were making her laugh by hiding behind the walls we were passing. We mentioned our game to her grandfather. After one hour of visiting time, which went by as if it was one minute, was over they came to take him back. Her grandfather smiled and said “Deniz now they are hiding me”.

After a loudly closed door, I whispered to my bewildered granddaughter’s ears: “Don’t worry, we are going to find him. The whole world knows where he is, not just us.”

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Update on Eaten Fish, April 2017

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Cartoon by Eaten Fish, a man without a nation to call his own.

The Manus Regional Processing Centre, Papua New Guinea has been making headlines again in recent weeks: firstly on Good Friday when prolonged gun fire on the camp’s perimeter aimed at detainees’ accommodation was the apparent result of a disagreement with locals over a football match; secondly for outrageous comments made by Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton about the same incident; and lastly after a meeting between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Vice President Mike Pence indicated that the USA would indeed honour the refugee relocation agreement made in the final days of the Obama administration.

An apparent reversal of fortune – President Donald Trump had famously described the deal as “dumb” and promised to re-examine its merits – sounds like good news for the Manus detainees, including Eaten Fish, the 2016 winner of our Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award.

However it is worth remembering that Eaten Fish’s refugee status has never been recognised, making him ineligible for any help that the USA might offer and that in any case comes only after lengthy and exhaustive “extreme vetting”, the kind of process during which he would certainly fail to give an adequate account of himself due to his diverse mental health problems.

This raises the question of what happens next since the camp is set to close before the end of the year. Eaten Fish exists in an ill-defined legal category, officially notified by the authorities of their intent to repatriate him to Iran months ago but in all likelihood facing a future as a prisoner on PNG. One possibility is transfer to a new facility that we understand is being planned in Port Moresby. Its Bomana Prison already houses several former detainees.

We asked Janet Galbraith of the Writing Through Fences project for her assessment and she was frank about the degree to which the odds are stacked against Eaten Fish, saying that even the best intended and well-resourced organisations’ help is rendered “disorganised and ineffective” against “determined politicians’ cruel policies, an apathetic and increasingly racist public and corrupted media.”

A report that ran recently in The Age and for which Janet provided information gives an accurate depiction of life on Manus for Eaten Fish’s compatriots and the many hundreds of men who have endured a unique, very modern and seemingly intractable method of torture over the last four years. The testimonies of journalist Behrouz Boochani, comedian and children’s entertainer Mehdi Savari, and Loghman Sawari – like Eaten Fish just a boy when he arrived on the island – are utterly heartbreaking.

And as for Eaten Fish, we call again for the only humane outcome after suffering such acute institutionalised abuse: immediate asylum on mainland Australia.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Turkey: trial date set for Musa Kart & Cumhuriyet colleagues

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Following President Erdoğan’ victory at last weekend’s referendum on presidential powers, Turkish authorities informed the lawyers of imprisoned cartoonist Musa Kart and his Cumhuriyet colleagues that their trial date has been set for July 24th 2017.

The announcement follows the indictment that was issued two weeks ago, some five months after their arrest. Kart is charged with “helping an armed terrorist organization while not being a member” and “abusing trust”, prosecutors stipulating a maximum sentence of twenty-nine years.

Prior to that, on March 6th, lawyers for Musa Kart and colleagues lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that Turkey’s Constitutional Court had not acknowledged receipt of their December 26th appeal against the jailing of their clients pending trial, and that this pretrial detention violated the European Convention on Human Rights’ guarantees of freedom and security, freedom of speech, and limitation of rights.

In addition they stated that the detentions have produced a deterrent effect on those wishing to express their opinion, whilst amounting to judicial misconduct with a political aim.

In response on April 12th the ECHR announced that the application would be given priority status and that the case “will be examined as soon as possible.”

The Kart family released the following statement earlier this week:

“As far as we know, and in accordance with the lawyers who are in contact with the courts, the trial could take place in July. If that is the case it means [Musa] will then have been imprisoned for nine months, the indictment only issued two weeks ago on April 4th, with no concrete evidence. Our father and husband, as he has always said, is not guilty of anything other than drawing cartoons, having been a critic of all those in power, including those he is accused of supporting, as a political cartoonist should be, and as his cartoons clearly show.

Knowing our father and husband as we do, his response to the referendum result would be this; in spite of the oppression that has taken place against opponents, and the unlimited resources [the government] had, the Yes vote succeeded by only 51%, and in fact lost in most of the largest cities. The people have given [the government] a message and hope they will read this message well. From now on all power will be in the hands of one person, one person who will be responsible for all anti-democratic practices too. As a result we may say our burden has increased in the struggle for democracy.”

CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper covered Musa’s story on Monday with contributions from CRNI as well as Prof. David Kaye, Special Rapporteur to the UN on freedom of expression & opinion.

Please note the #FreeTurkeyMedia campaign led by Amnesty International continues all the way to World Press Freedom Day on May 3rd.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Musa Kart is a critic, not friend of terrorists

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CRNI has been one among the many dozens of organisations to condemn the Turkish government’s criminal indictment of multiple journalists from Cumhuriyet newspaper, including cartoonist Musa Kart.

Kart faces a maximum of twenty-nine years for “helping an armed terrorist organization while not being a member” and “abusing trust”; in brief, Recep Erdoğan’s regime contends that Cumhuriyet staff aided and abetted terrorist organisations such as the PKK as well as the Gülen Movement, alleged perpetrators of last summer’s attempted coup.

A brief glance through Kart’s work reveals the truth. Like almost all cartoonists his chief concern is scrutiny of those in power, whoever they may be.

The pair of cartoons below illustrate Kart’s concerns in recent years as Turkey’s government has become ever more authoritarian and its society less secular.

“Be quick, the ceremony is about to begin!”

“What are these waiting for?” “Restoration of honour.” (Democracy, secularism, law, freedom of speech)

This cartoon puts Recep Erdoğan’s words after the attempted coup last July in the mouth of his exiled opponent, and alleged mastermind behind the coup, Fethullah Gülen. He thereby employs irony to suggest that the two men are akin. Critics of the Gülen Movement consider it a cult of personality and similar observations can be made about the Erdoğan regime.

“I realised that FETÖ was a terror organisation on the 15th of July. I ask for God’s forgiveness.”

As far back as 2004, Kart was depicting Gülen as an infiltrator in the Turkish military.

 

“Date 12 September 1980 – We have found suitable ground to climb up!”

In these cartoons, Kart derides those who would overturn democracy or suppress freedom by force, be they terrorists, insurgents or military forces.

“History of democracy.”

“And this is the unmanned land vehicle.”

Of course, the subtext to current events is that Erdoğan has attempted to silence Kart twice before, as prime minister and then president. After successfully defending his right to freedom of expression in court against a thin-skinned head of government Kart received our Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award.  It is clear that under the emergency powers deployed since July the president has taken the opportunity for revenge on a cartoonist he has long despised. On the 16th of April the Turkish people voted to grant their leader even greater power.

At the time of Kart’s arrest last year Hürriyet newspaper ran a column in his defence, making reference to several of the cartoons above and saying:

“[Kart] drew injustices, hypocritical political pawns, vandals, warmongers, irresponsible beings, terror lords. He has done whatever a humor master needs to. He did his job; and he has done a good job. He criticized strongly, and obviously infuriated some people.

In the past, until quite recently actually, they used to keep canaries inside coal mines, maybe you know about them. The canary’s duty was to die. When its sensitive body collapsed as a sign of the accumulation of toxic gasses in the mine, the miners would recognize the danger and would have time to flee. The canary, by stopping singing and dying, would signal the danger in advance.

Intellectuals live and produce for society, like the canary in the mine. When their voices are not heard, it means disaster is approaching.”

Read the article in full here.

Further support for Musa Kart comes as part of a letter-writing programme to imprisoned journalists by members of the European Parliament who sent their first message to the cartoonist, saying:

Dear Musa,

Stay strong. We are writing this letter to assure you of our solidarity, to remind you that you are not alone, to tell you that your sarcastic take on the news is cruelly lacking as we witness Turkey’s transformation into an authoritarian regime.

After your arrest last October, on entirely spurious grounds, you have been held in pretrial detention ever since, imprisoned in disgraceful and intolerable conditions.

For long months you have been cut off from the world and deprived of your freedom. And what was your crime? To want to practice your profession in a completely independent manner, to want to tell your fellow citizens the truth, and with humour. Being a cartoonist is not just a job for you, it is a real calling, a calling that earned you the media freedom prize from your colleagues in the association of Turkish journalists.

How terribly the media in Turkey have been treated for almost a year now!

Stay strong, Musa. Turkey, your fellow citizens, your readers, we all need you. Without you, without a free and independent press, citizens are no longer free and independent. You are the guardians of democracy, even more so in troubled times, and and we are grateful to you for that.

Stay strong, Musa!

Even thousands of kilometres away, even still unknown to you, we are at your side, committed to freedom, a free press and a democratic Turkey.

With our full support and sympathy,

Eva Joly, MEP
Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts, co-chairs of the Greens/EFA Group, on behalf of the group members

Throughout the month Amnesty International’s  #FreeTurkeyMedia campaign has gathered cartoons drawn in solidarity with Musa from around the world. Expect more to proliferate as he comes to trial.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Zunar receives compensation from Malay gov’t

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Supporters of cartoonist Zunar were cheered to hear of a small but significant victory in his ongoing legal battles with the government, ruling political party, judiciary and police force in Malaysia today.

He has won financial compensation for damage to personal property during a police raid on his office.  As he explains, of more importance than the sum awarded is the message this decision sends to those in the country who continue to suppress freedom of expression.

The full text reads:

“The government of Malaysia, bound by the court order today has agreed to pay RM18,000 (about USD 4,000) as a compensation for destroying my orginal political cartoon seven years ago. When the police raided my office and arrested me under the Sedition Act on 24th September 2010, they laso confiscated the drawing which depicted PM Najib and his wife Rosmah, along with then newly-published book “Cartoon-O-Phobia”.

In November 2014, upon my suit, the Court of Appeal maintained the decision by the High Court in July 2012 which had instructed the police to return the drawing and the books to me.  The original drawing was badly damaged when I received it.

STATEMENT

1. The confiscation of cartoon artworks under the criminal law the Sedition Act is a gross violation of  cartoonist’s rights and freedom of expression.

2. To keep the artwork under the police custody for five years and damaging it is a more serious offence. It is clearly an act of intimidation and lack of respect of the work of art.

3. Today’s decision is not about the quantum, but as a lesson to the police and the Malaysian government that using criminal law arbitrarily to confiscate and destroy cartoon works is unacceptable, and was done in bad faith. It is also a clear proof that my book’s title, “Cartoon-O-Phobia” is a right word to discribe the character of the Malaysian government.

4. I would also like to remind that there are currently more than 40 of my cartoon works still under police custody in Penang since November 2016, which are also being investigated under the Sedition Act. I will take legal action for the police to return them at they are. The has to be responsible for damages, if any.

5. This goes the same for the 1,300 books which was confiscated by the Kuala Lumpur police, also in November 2016, because according to the police, it is “Detrimental to Parliamentary Democracy.”

Zunar’s damages relate to the incidents that first brought him to CRNI’s attention and earned him our Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award in 2011.

At the end of this week Zunar is due to hear a judge’s decision on his challenge to his on-going travel ban.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

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