Europe’s mountain censor

This event has extra importance for journalists working in Brussels. Every journalist works very hard to be the first one to learn the details of the report before it is officially published.  In a sense, the fruits of relationships established within the year are reaped. Those who are adept are lucky and can find an opportunity to learn the details of the report days before it is officially published. Speculation on the content of the report, which is revisited several times until the last week and even the last minute before it is released, starts months in advance.

Certainly the report is a good guide to understand all that has transpired in Turkey in the last year. But it is also a very important portrait of Europe's view of Turkey. For example, the examination of even the smallest details related to some human rights problems coupled with the complete exclusion of other critical problems reveals the EU's crooked outlook. In Thursday's paper, a news report by Today's Zaman Brussels bureau chief Selçuk Gültaşlı, a journalist who has been following developments in the EU capital very closely, wrote about some of the headings in the progress report.

According to the article, Brussels has adopted a relatively clearer stance -- compared to last year -- supporting the ongoing Ergenekon trial. While criticizing deficiencies in the judicial process, the report underlines that this case is an opportunity to strengthen democracy in Turkey. It also points out that for the first time a former chief of general staff has testified as a witness in a case concerning coup plans.

As usual, problems in the judicial system are condemned and while there is a positive reference to new legislation that prevents civilians from being tried in military courts during peacetime, the report notes that there remains a problem with the judiciary's impartiality.

 While the report supports the government's democratic initiatives, special emphasis is placed on the process launched to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia. In the section that addresses military-civilian relations, the continued political influence of the armed forces is noted as a negative situation. The report recalls that there are still some laws that create freedom of expression problems and recommends improving efforts to launch judicial reform.

The draft report also mentions the tax fine imposed on the Doğan Media Group and describes the penalty as disproportionate. This is an unsurprising stance that is in line with statements issued from Brussels following the incident. The most striking part of this year's report, although it is still in draft form, is that although it specifically addresses the Doğan Group's tax fine problem, it does not mention the mountain accreditation incident Turkey had debated for weeks.

Let us recall what happened to the Cihan news agency cameraman who was covering the helicopter crash in which Grand Unity Party (BBP) leader Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu was killed in late March. Military search-and-rescue teams left the cameraman on the mountain after they found out that he worked for Cihan. The incident led to public indignation, and dozens of media organizations condemned what happened. Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ issued a statement even before journalists requested one and said that if anyone within the military was responsible, they would be held accountable. But unfortunately the statements did not satisfy the public. The Zaman group decided to withdraw from the Press Council, which opted to remain silent on the situation although just about every media organization extended support to the Cihan cameraman.

Is it possible that those who prepared the progress report somehow overlooked an issue that had occupied Turkey's agenda for some time? If rumors that have reached us are correct, then the situation is more critical. According to rumors, those working on the report in Ankara included the mountain incident in the report. But this section was removed from the report in Brussels. If that is really what happened, then that means the discrimination we are used to seeing in EU reports each year with respect to certain issues such as the headscarf is also present in this year's progress report as well.

There is no need for me to reiterate the one issue that the report insistently chooses to overlook each year. But I would like to note that a perspective that overlooks the issue of abandoning journalists on mountaintops will offend a large group of people that closely follow the matter and will cast a cloud over Brussels' objectivity.