Can Dündar, Former Editor of Cumhuriyet, Turkey HARDtalk

Now on BBC News,

it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk.

I'm Stephen Sackur.

More than 150 journalists are

currently imprisoned in Turkey.

President Erdogan government stands

accused of an all-out assault on

freedom of expression. My guest

today is Can Dundar who as

experienced imprisonment,

life-threatening violence and ex-

owl in the last couple of years,

after publishing material which

infuriated the Turkish president. In

the battle for Turkish future and

its soul, who is a winning?

Can Dundar, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you.

You live in Germany,

you would like to live in Turkey

but it's not possible.

Do you feel a sense of freedom

in Germany that you could not enjoy

in your last period inside Turkey?

You can't really feel as a free man

while your friends are in jail,

your family is under,

you know, away from you and,

at the same time, you are threatened

by a very despotic government.

If you are seen as a threat

by the government,

you can't be free, feel free

everywhere in the world,

nowhere in the world.

Do you have security right now?

Of course, part of your story over

the last couple of years is not just

arrest and imprisonment but also

there was an attempt on your life.

Do you feel secure in Germany?

Not really.

Because Turkish intelligence

is so active in Germany

and there are a lot

of pro-government people,

pro-Erdogan people

living in Germany,

and that's why there

is a huge campaign against me

by the Turkish government,

that's why it's a kind of...

Um, it's not the safest place

in the world, Germany...

Do you have security?

Yeah, I do have security.

If I do something in public,

they come and protect me.

I suppose your story is very much

about your relationship

with President Erdogan,

and the two of you have known

of each other for an awful

long time and, indeed,

I am interested to go back

in time to the early 2000s,

when you wrote about Erdogan

in a pretty favourable manner.

You described yourself as

"cautiously optimistic" about him.

You said that "here is a man

who stands up to the military".

Do you think, in retrospect, that

you totally misunderstood the man?

I guess he was pretending

like he was a democrat all those

years and he had a plan

from the beginning and he convinced

many Turkish liberals,

together with Western governments

that he's a democrat and he's trying

to get the Turkish army bac

that he's a democrat and he's trying

to get the Turkish army back

to the barracks again,

and we were also critical

about the Turkish army

being so involved in Turkish

politics that's why someone

who was promising to get the army

back to the barracks was, you know,

we should give him a chance

but we knew that he was not

a democrat because he said already

during...as as a governor

of Istanbul, back to 1996,

he said democracy is not my main

aim, it is just a tool to get me

to the main aim.

Let's get to the unfolding of events

in more recent times.

You knew that, as the century

proceded, we got to 2010,

2012, that Erdogan was showing

a much more authoritarian streak

in his rule.

But you took some rash decisions.

I mean, for example,

when you became editor in chief

of Cumhuriyet, you must have known

that breaking this story in 2015

about the Turkish government

smuggling arms over the border

to rebels in Syria, you must have

known that running that story

would put an enormous strain,

to say the least,

on your relationship

with the government?

Of course, we knew it.

In a way, we were expecting it.

Because, as a journalist, of course,

you must be realistic about this

but what would you do?

I mean, you have a story,

which is true,

your government is doing

something illegal

and hiding it and naming it as state

secrets and you are a journalist,

and you are a journalist,

this is your duty...

Well, it was a state secret,

clearly it was a state secret,

it it was a covert operation,

nobody was supposed to do about it.

That is the point

of covert operations.

It was Turkey's Iran gate.

It was Turkey's Irangate.

In a way, it was not a state secret

it was the secret of Erdogan

so he was trying to get involved

in the Syrian war in an illegal way.

Well, put yourself in the shoes of

a journalist in a different country.

I mean, frankly, if a British

journalist had tried to dig deep

into the affairs of military

intelligence in the UK,

or the same thing in

the United States,

they would have run

into serious trouble.

We have something called

the Official Secrets Act.

Have you seen the film The Post?

I have seen the film The Post,

which concerns Vietnam

and the uncovering of

the Pentagon papers.

So they were right

to publish the story.

It's more or less

the same story with us,

with a very different

ending, unfortunately.

But, I mean, this is our duty

to inform the public

about this kind of danger.

Well, yes, but presumably as a Turk

you also have an obligation

and a duty to consider things

like putting

Turkish military personnel or others

at risk and you do know

that the Turkish government insisted

that what you had uncovered

was not gunrunning to rebels

but was actually the transfer of aid

and assistance to Turkmen civilians.

The Turkish government wanted

to help the Turkmen civilian

population inside Turkey.

That is what Mr Erdogan said.

That's what they said but

the Turkmen denied this allegation.

They said they did not get aid

from this and we knew that Turkey

had a very a close contact

with the Islamic guerrillas in Syria

and we were opposing it.

So that's what it was important.

But, again, to be fair

to the Turkish government,

you went through due process.

Erdogan we know

was furious with you.

He described what you did

as espionage and said,

"those who wrote that

will be punished"

but he did not do it himself.

He filed a complaint

and the courts took it up

and you were tried

in a court of law.

Exactly and, unfortunately,

the courts are all controlled

by himself...

That's your opinion.

Yeah, I mean, so when he ordered

a kind of complaint,

or defined me as a traitor or a spy,

no judge can, you know,

decide the other way.

You spent 92 days in prison

in the course of the legal process

before the actual conviction.

What were those 92 days like?

I was in solitary confinement.

In a way I was ready

because if you are a journalist

in Turkey, you must be ready

for any kind of insults,

imprisonment, harassment,

even being killed

so psychologically I felt ready.

Immediately I start working,

writing, and tried to give a voice

to the words that something

is going on in the country.

to the world that something

is going on in the country.

See that's what strikes me

about Turkey, it's complex

to make sense of the nature

of the authoritarianism

that we talk about in Turkey

because there you sit in prison,

Erdogan has declared

you an enemy of the State

and yet you are free to write,

you're free to express your opinion,

you can get that opinion

to the outside world.

I mean, this isn't exactly

North Korea, is it?

With our government it was

difficult, it was not easy to do it.

You can do everything in Turkey

but the price is high.

You must be brave enough to do it.

If you are ready to pay the price,

you are free to do it.

You are free to write,

you are free to talk

but the price is really high

so you can spend your whole

life in jail.

Well, that is a very interesting way

to put it the price is very high.

In the end you chose to avoid paying

some of that inevitable price by,

when you were released

on appeal, you fled.

You were invited to Germany

to receive a journalistic price

You were invited to Germany

to receive a journalistic prize

and you decided not to go back.

Partly true because after I was

released I spent five months

in Turkey, I got back to my job

again, but it was summer time

and I went on holiday

to Spain, in fact,

then this military coup attempt has

happened in Turkey,

then the rule of law was lifted.

And my lawyers advised me to stay

away from the country

for a while and that's why

I decided to stay in Germany.

Was it partly out of fear

because I referred earlier

to an attempt on your life.

A gunman approached you outside

the court one day and,

miraculously, you survived,

even though he tried to shoot

you at very close range.

But was it fear that drove you out

of Turkey in the end?

Of course, otherwise...

Being in jail doesn't matter,

you can stay in jail

for a while but if your life

is in danger, of course,

you should think twice.

It wasn't the Turkish

state though, was it?

There has been a legal proceedings

against the government

There has been a legal

proceedings against the gunman

and there is no connection,

it seems, between him and the state.

He said...

He said that he was inspired

by the accusations of the statesman

and he is free now,

with his passport in his pocket.

That clearly is a bitter

thing for you to swallow.

Of course, and my wife hasn't got

a passport but he has.

You talk about your wife, Dilek,

she is in Turkey she is not

free to travel.

She has been stopped

from visiting you in Germany.

Yes, she was stopped at the airport

without any accusation.

There is no accusation against her.

No investigation and she has done

nothing other than marry me...

How hard is that because you have no

prospect of going home.

She has no prospect

of leaving Turkey.

This is the price

I was talking about.

So this is part of the deal

and he loves taking hostages

and he tries to punish me by keeping

the family away from each other.

This is a strange word to use but do

you feel a sense of guilt

about your situation

because you are now in Germany,

you are here in the UK,

a play is being produced about some

of your experiences, you know,

you are something of a well-known

figure now in the Western media

and yet your wife is stuck in Turkey

but more than that,

many of your colleagues

on the Cumhuriyet newspaper

are facing more legal proceedings.

Many of them, I think 16 of them,

have been in prison since you got

out of the country.

They are 150 journalists

in all currently in prison,

thousands have lost their jobs -

do you feel awkward about being

outside of Turkey?

Yes of course.

If I was in Turkey and would be

in jail or in the cemetery so...

But I'm not silent, I am

still struggling for something.

I am still writing and talking

about my country and defending our

freedom, our democracy so I really

believe in the future so,

in Turkey, I wouldn't be so vocal

but now I have the opportunity

to talk to people in

the world about Turkey.

Yes, we interviewed

Mr Erdogan last year

on HARDtalk.

This is what he said

about the accusation that he has

repressed freedom of expression

systematically in his country.

He said, "no one is jailed

because of journalism.

Right now in Turkey there are many

opposition journalist can write

a lot of things, all kinds

of articles, all kinds of insults,

and they are still out

there and those who are in jail,

well, they are criminals.

They have no title as journalists."

Yes, exactly.

So I have been working

as a journalist for more than

35 years now and convicted

as a terrorist.

There are a lot of journalists

like me so in his eyes,

if you're criticising

the government, you are a terrorist

and that is why he won't accept,

he doesn't accept that there

are journalists in jail

because in his eyes they are not

journalists but they

are journalists.

They are my friends and my

colleagues and they have done

nothing but write and

criticise the government.

Explain to me how

Mr Erdogan is still,

according to the opinion polls,

by far the most popular

politician in Turkey.

Explain to me how it looks as though

he can expect to be in power

because of that popularity

until, perhaps, 2029.

The man dominates Turkey

despite all the things you say

about him, he is the man.

He is the man.

Imagine yourself in his shoe,

but the president when you're

determined to dominate

the government, the Parliament

the judiciary,

the media, businesses.

You are the Sultan, you're not

allowed to make a demonstration

against the government.

It must be so easy

to run such a country.

It must be so easy to run such a

country.

Is there not also a

question about you and your

colleagues in the secular liberal

progressive media? For all of your

bravery and courage, and I do not

belittle that in any way, you appear

to be out of touch with many of your

countrymen and women.

The question

should be the other way around, how

come, in these circumstances, half

of these people are still resisting

him in such a country under these

circumstances? Really, I mean, it is

very surprising for us to see 50% of

the people voted against him in the

last referendum. It is bravery.

What

about Fethullah Gulen and the

idea... Again, the Turkish state is

clear about this. The idea that

Gulen and his networks, and we saw

it manifested in the idea he was

behind the coup of 2015, he is

trying to undermine democracy and

they are trying to corrupt those

institutions.

I guess this is one of

the issues that I agree with him.

Are you a Gulenist?

I agree with

Erdogan. If someone is a Gulenist in

Turkey, number one is Erdogan.

Together, they run the country, for

years. And Gulen was in charge of

the theocracy, universities, media,

and the university system, and

Erdogan was in charge of the money.

We work reciting both of them. And

is now Erdogan says Gulen is not the

right guy to partner with.

He has to

do something. To quote the Turkish

Foreign Minister a few days ago, he

said we are going through a

necessary face to make sure Gulenist

members, including sleeper cells,

are removed from all positions of

power in the media, business, and

academia. It is a painful process,

he said, but we act within the law.

Ha, within the law. They inserted

them into the state. They made it.

And now the creator attacks the

creator. It is a Frankenstein story.

And now they are accusing us of

being Gulenists. Everyone opposing

the government nowadays is branded a

Gulenist. That is the thing. I have

nothing to do with them. The outside

world looks at this and sometimes

they are confused about what is

happening in Turkey. Would you say

you have been gravely disappointed

with the reaction of the EU, for

example, in these months, in terms

of what you want to see, isolation

and condemnation of Erdogan.

Definitely. I am so much deeply

disappointed by the institutes of

Western governments. That is due to

the refugee crisis, in fact...

They

need Mr Erdogan...

They do not want

to annoy him. They want someone to

take refugees in Turkey. They made a

dirty deal with Erdogan, and that

was they kept a closed eye to his

aggression and in turn he kept

refugees in Turkey.

You say a dirty

deal, others say practical politics.

To quote the former EU Commissioner,

he said at the end of last year, in

the midst of this negotiation, what

Turkey could do to stem the flow of

refugees into Europe, he said the EU

needs Turkey more than Turkey needs

the EU right now.

What principles?

What about democracy? We have been

fighting for so-called "Western

ideals" like equality for men and

women, democracy, and so on. To see

European leaders at the other side,

it is really disappointing. They

should be supporting democracy in

Turkey, but instead, umm, they just

ignored it.

You are in a difficult

position because on the one hand you

seem to be idling for the isolation

of Erdogan by the EU, and surely the

whole point of the position is that

you want bridges to be built between

the EU and Turkey. What messages are

sending if Turkey was completely

isolated?

Turkey is not akin to

Erdogan. Erdogan should be isolated,

Turkey should not. It is not only

Erdogan. The opponents, the freedom

fighters in Turkey, Democrats, and,

you know, 50% of Turkey.

You are

asking the EU to interfere in

Turkish internal affairs.

No, I do

not expect anything from the

European governments. Take British

artists trying to give a hand to

Turkish democracy by, you know,

playing something about Turkey. And

some publishing houses playing, you

know, publishing books about Turkey.

Accepting Turkish academics. And

trade unions, parties,

organisations, I am talking about

this. Do not isolate Turkey, make it

a member in this family.

That is a

very interesting point you are

making. I know you are here to work

in a play called "We Are Arrested",

based on a memoir you wrote in

prison. A Shakespeare company is

putting it on as a play in the UK.

How important is that sort of

cultural messaging, and reaching out

across the world for you today? Does

it make your life worth living?

Yeah. This is a lifelong experience.

It was a testimony, my book. I got a

call from the Royal Shakespeare

Company saying we just want to make

a play out of this.

Do you think it

will make a difference?

Of course.

It is a very important message. And

at the same time, it is a kind of

Anushka and for the aggressive

government saying that art is much

more valuable than your daily

politics. It will stay for years.

But what about Erdogan?

You wrote

that in prison, so there is no

doubting your determination to keep

talking and expressing yourself if

there. But surely at times you have

to think that your wife is still

stuck inside Turkey, you have other

family inside Turkey, are you in

anyway self censoring because you

are so concerned about them?

A very

important question. Umm, at least

you have to think twice what you are

writing and what you talk about. I

talk to my wife and she said OK,

talk about me, because this is our

struggle. But of course, this is the

logic of taking hostages. If your

friends are in jail, your family is

there, of course you have to think

twice. That is a kind of censorship.

Do you think you will ever be able

to live with your wife again?

Of

course. I am so hopeful about

Turkey's feature. And we are coming

to the end of this darkest dower. --

future. -- hour. Unfortunately,

Turkey is a missing...

How can you

say that with so much optimism as we

have discussed that Erdogan's grip

on your country is tighter than

ever.

But on the other hand, we have

half of the people resisting. And

just on Women's Day, streets were

full of women resisting even if it

is dangerous and risky for them.

This country will not surrender.

That is why I am so optimistic about

the country.

Can Dundar, thank you

for coming in HARDtalk.

Thank you

very much.

Thank you.