Turkish interior minister says he wants to become a journalist

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has claimed that journalism is not done properly anymore in Turkey, which is why he would like to become a journalist if he could “give up everything.” He also said that politicians have the “luxury” of making mistakes, whereas the same is not the case for journalists.

Duvar English

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has said that journalism is not done properly anymore in Turkey, which is why he would like to "give up everything and become a journalist." The minister made the comments on Dec. 12 during a radio show interview aired on Radyo D.

Asked if he criticizes journalists and reaches them in an attempt to “correct them when they give a wrong information,” Soylu said: “I am one of the politicians who criticizes the journalism profession the most. A journalist does not have the luxury of making mistakes. We have, but they don't. If a journalist makes a mistake once or twice, they can be forgiven. [But] Media members are now very relaxed. Journalists of an era [past] used to give a lot of effort. Now I want to go back, give up everything and do journalism. I cannot tell you how many issues need to be criticized and corrected today.”

“There are some journalists who are ideologically blinded; they cannot see what is right. Whatever we say [the government], they declare us null and void. We cannot persuade them. I cannot deal with them, but I read what they write; I need to know what kind of a psychological state they are in,” he said.

Soylu also said that investigative journalism is currently “almost non-existent” in Turkey, while giving an example of a column penned by daily Hürriyet's Ertuğrul Özkök on Dec. 11. Soylu said that there were “missing points” in Özkök's column, which pushed him to write a letter to Özkök.

The columnist had touched upon the detention of a group of women on Dec. 8 in Istanbul's Kadıköy district while partaking in a dancing protest inspired by a song from Chile named “A rapist in your path.” “Interior Minister Soylu says, 'If there is a problem regarding women's [rights], the system will solve that.' The 430 women who were killed in one year [since January in Turkey] shows what the system could not solve. This is why Chilean women started dancing. Well, what do people in Turkey think about the detention of Turkish women who copied that movement?” Özkök wrote in his column, adding that a recently conducted survey shows a majority of Turks do not believe just because someone is detained, they must be “guilty.”

“So, you can't just say 'I arrested them, because I am right.' Because that is not what the people say,” Öztürk's column further said.

Criticizing Özkök's article, Soylu said: “There were missing points in his column. I have conveyed these points to him by writing a letter. He is criticizing me. He says to me, 'Why are you defending the [police] intervention undertaken against the women dancing in Kadıköy?' Forgive me, but if the dancing women name the 'state, police and judge as rapers and murderers' [during their demonstration] how will we solve this problem?”

“In Turkey, the [laws concerning] violence and murder against women are the same as the laws in Europe. We need the support of every fraction [of society] regarding this issue. We expect support, not ideological stance. And I said in my letter, 'I wish they had just danced and not called the state as a murderer and rapist.' We will continue to build an environment of peace,” Soylu said.