TURKEY: GOVERNMENT USING "TAX TERROR" TO MUZZLE INDEPENDENT PRESS — CRITICS
Yigal Schleifer

Eurasia Insight
ticles/eav091409b.shtml
9/14/09

Is the Turkish government trying to break the back of a media
conglomerate that has served as its most vocal opposition by slapping
it with a whopping $2.5 billion tax penalty?

That¡¯s the question being asked in Turkey and abroad after authorities
levied a record-breaking fine on the Dogan Media Group, which publishes
several influential newspapers (Hurriyet, Milliyet and Radikal among
them) and owns CNN-Turk, the Turkish-language version of CNN, among
other channels. The penalty (which nearly equals the entire value
of the company) comes on the heels of a $500 million tax fine issued
against Dogan a few months ago.

"It raises question marks, absolutely," says Bulent Aliriza, director
of the Turkey Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic
and International Studies. "The sum involved is astronomical. Clearly
this is enough to break the back of any corporation and it opens up
the question of what is the goal of the government?"

According to Turkish tax officials, Dogan engaged in deceptive
practices and failed to pay tax on income earned through the sale of
a company and through the transfer of shares between companies within
the group itself. According to the Dogan Group, everything has been
above board and the government, through its taxmen, is out to get it
by twisting the country¡¯s financial rules to suit its purposes.

Over the last few years, the Dogan Group¡¯s media outlets have
emerged as perhaps the most vocal critics of the governing Justice
and Development Party (AKP). At one point earlier this year, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan even called for his supporters to
boycott the group¡¯s publications. Interestingly, relations between
the AKP, which is moderate Islamic in its orientation, and the media
group turned especially sour after some of the Dogan publications
aggressively reported on the financial misdeeds committed by the
German branch of a Turkish Islamic charity with close ties to the
AKP leadership.

According to its critics, the Turkish government is now involved in
an attempt to silence one of its detractors, as part of a larger plan
to create compliant media.

The emergence in recent years of a powerful Islamic press and some
questionable moves by the AKP – such as the sale of the bankrupt
but influential Sabah ATV media conglomerate to a business group
run by the prime minister¡¯s son-in-law – has given the government
unprecedented influence in the media, critics charge.

"Without any legal ground, such a practice could not be
welcomed anywhere in the world," Fikret Bila, Milliyet¡¯s Ankara
representative and one of Turkey¡¯s leading veteran journalists,
recently wrote. "These two consecutive tax levies are nothing but
¡¯tax terror¡¯ against the company owner, Ayd¦¡¢Æn Dogan. This is
obviously a confiscation process, not just tax penalties."

The government insists the massive fine is simply the result of tax
inspectors doing their job.

What makes the case somewhat murky is the fact that Aydin Dogan,
chairman of the Dogan organization, is not a scrappy newspaperman
fighting for his life, but rather a media baron and business magnate
who is a kind of Turkish Rupert Murdoch, controlling a very large
slice of the Turkish media scene.

Writing in the English-language Today¡¯s Zaman, columnist Andrew
Finkel points out that "as Turkey¡¯s press baron extraordinaire,
[Dogan] openly promoted his allies and intimidated his foes to
carve out a world favorable to himself." Finkel added that the Dogan
Group has faced criticism for blurring the lines "between editorial
independence and financial self-interest."

Tax officials and Dogan might enter into negotiations that could
lead to a settlement of some kind, but observers inside and outside
Turkey say the size of the initial fine does raise questions about
press freedom in the country.

The European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, has already expressed
its concern, with a spokesman in Brussels stating; "When the sanction
is of such magnitude that it threatens the very existence of an entire
press group, like in this case, then freedom of the press is at stake."

And in a recently released statement, the powerful Turkish
Industrialists¡¯ and Businessmen¡¯s Associations (TUSIAD) took the
government to task for its action against the Dogan Group. "These
enforcements, which comply with neither justice, nor the concept
of modern tax and revenue administration, target press freedom and
pluralism besides creating unrecoverable material and moral losses,"
the statement said. "The situation makes the sincerity of Turkey¡¯s
recent democratization process questionable, also endangering its
sustainability.

Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in
Istanbul.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress