Turkey's Pre-NATO Summit Crackdown Draws Criticism

BRUSSELS — Turkish authorities have carried out hundreds of arrests, banned protests and curbed media freedoms ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara, with campaigners accusing the government of using the gathering as a pretext for a clampdown on civil society.

On Tuesday, Turkish police detained 225 people including academics, teachers and activists on suspicion of links to militant groups like the Islamic State — among them a 79-year-old environmental campaigner. The city of Ankara has also banned public gatherings, exams, press conferences and hanging posters starting Sunday, deploying 40,000 police to the capital.

Meanwhile, “dozens” of independent Turkish journalists have been denied accreditation to the July 7-8 leaders’ summit without explanation, said Uraz Kaspar, a journalist and member of the national committee of the International Press Institute (UPI).

Some of those denied accreditation are from outlets that have been critical of authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart on Thursday said the alliance “relies on the host nation to provide assessments on journalists from their country.” NATO is “in contact with Turkish authorities on accreditation,” she said, adding: “It is very important for NATO that media can attend major events in person.”

But campaigners accuse the alliance of shirking its responsibility.

“Although NATO relies on host-nation assessments, this does not absolve the alliance of its responsibility to maintain its own standards,” said Kaspar. “Every rejected journalist deserves a clear, specific and transparent reason for their denial.”

The IPI on Friday sent a letter alongside 14 press freedom organizations to NATO chief Mark Rutte, calling on the alliance to reconsider the accreditations.

“If host governments can effectively exclude journalists from international media events, that should … be stated openly,” said Işın Eliçin, a journalist at the independent outlet Halk TV whose accreditation was denied.

“An unexplained exclusion of journalists restricts media freedom and ultimately limits the public’s rights … to receive independent information about NATO’s work,” she said.

Ben Ward, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch’s Europe division, said that “NATO's officials should make it clear that an alliance based on professed shared values of democracy, rule of law and human rights can in no way condone the Turkish authorities' highly repressive approach in the run-up to the summit.”

Turkey's measures are also making NATO uncomfortable.

The summit “shouldn’t be used as an excuse for a crackdown,” said one NATO diplomat.

“We follow these developments closely and raise these issues regularly in our bilateral contacts,” added a senior NATO diplomat. Both were granted anonymity to speak freely.

In response, the alliance is in contact with Turkish officials to reexamine the list of accreditations, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“When an authoritarian [government] hosts the summit you get arbitrary media accreditation & >200 people detained in some 'preventive' operation,” Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament’s lead lawmaker on Turkey, said in a social media post. "Sadly, none of this seems to be keeping Rutte awake at night.”

The Turkish government did not respond to a request for comment by POLITICO.

Turkey ranks 163 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, by far the lowest for any of the NATO alliance's 32 members. The country has the third-highest number of journalists imprisoned in Europe, after Azerbaijan and Russia.