The arrest of Sedef Kadaf once again highlights the ongoing persecution of journalists and opposition leaders under the right-wing government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey
On Sunday, January 23, a court in Turkey sent journalist Sedef Kadaf to prison pending trial for “insulting” president Recep Tayyib Erdogan. She was detained in a midnight raid at her residence on Saturday following an outcry by the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) leadership over one of her social media posts.
Sedef Kadaf, 53, is a senior journalist in Turkey. During a TV show, she used a Turkish idiom while talking about the Erdogan government which translates as “when an ox climbs into a palace he does not become a king, but the palace becomes a barn”. She also tweeted the same from her official Twitter handle. Following her tweet, several senior ministers in the Erdogan government targeted her on social media demanding that she be punished for insulting the president.
The security forces raided her house around 2 am and detained her. She was later presented in a court in Istanbul which sent her to prison pending trial.
Her arrest has led to widespread criticism of the Erdogan government. Her lawyer, Ugur Poyraz, criticized the court’s decision to send her to prison as “unlawful” and a violation of the rule of law in the country, Reuters reported.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) also
denounced the arrest, calling it a blatant violation of last year’s
verdict given by the European Court of Human Rights.
[1/2] #Turkey: @RSF_inter outraged by the imprisonment in Istanbul of the prominent journalist #SedefKabaş for “insulting the President Erdogan” after she criticized him in a TV program on Jan 21. This is a blatant violation of @ECHR_CEDH’s Vedat Şorli ruling sentencing Turkey. pic.twitter.com/jqviEmw1TX
— RSF in English (@RSF_en) January 22, 2022
Dr Yaara Benger Alaluf, historian and community and education coordinator of the non-profit organisation Zochrot, says this issue cannot be understood outside of its historical and political context.
“The area of the Naqab desert was historically inhabited by Bedouin Palestinian tribes, with social, cultural and economic ties to the Palestinian urban society as well as to Bedouin communities in Sinai, Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula,” Benger Alaluf told TRT World.
“Taxation documents prior to the establishment of the State of Israel prove that Bedouins legally owned lands and property,” she added.
However, after the establishment of Israel, the vast majority of land throughout 1948 Palestine was illegally transferred to state and JNF ownership under Israeli military orders.
Roots of the JNF
The Jewish National Fund was established in 1901 in Basel, Switzerland and, according to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, it “was the principle tool for the colonisation of Palestine.”
The organisation was founded with the purpose of acquiring land from the time of Ottoman Palestine for the establishment of Jewish-only colonies.
It was founded not too long after Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl established the Zionist Movement in 1897, which worked towards gaining support for a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land.
The JNF sought public recognition as a public body under international law and was first registered in England in 1907 and in the United States in 1926.
For many Jews outside of Palestine, donating to the JNF became an integral way to support the creation of a safe homeland during the rise of anti-Semitism throughout Europe.
“By falsely marketing itself as a benign tree-planting organisation and portraying Palestine as uninhabited, JNF was able to appeal to the Jewish Diaspora for donations to fund its colonial operations, and perhaps more significantly, rally support for Zionism,” Ghada Sasa, a PhD candidate in international Relations at McMaster University, told TRT World.
By 1948, nearly six percent of land within the British Mandate of Palestine was owned by the JNF and by the end of Israel’s Proclamation of Establishment, Israeli forces had come to control around 80 percent of the land.
The organisation was soon after repackaged to place focus on its “ecological developments” and “green” technology.
Making the desert “bloom”
Israel’s widely accepted narrative of having entered an underdeveloped land has always been grossly misleading according to academics and historians like Sasa.
The JNF for years has helped exile hundreds of Palestinian families, uprooted natural vegetation of olive, carob and pistachio trees and planted non-native pinera (conifers) and eucalyptus trees.
“While JNF boasts of having planted over 240 million trees, most are non-Native conifers, which are not suited to the Palestinian environment, regularly bursting into fires due to their high flammability, producing needles that acidify the forest floor and kill Indigenous species and reduce biodiversity.”
Common plants in Palestine maintain soil moisture and create a natural barrier to fire. Olive trees, in particular, help prevent soil erosion.
Despite the JNF’s human rights violations and environmental damage being well-documented, the organisation’s actions are largely ignored, as the majority of countries globally continue to see Israel as a vital political partner in the Middle East.
READ MORE: Israel faces coalition crisis over tree-planting in Negev
When it comes to the Palestinian cause Sasa says: “Western environmentalism splits human and environmental rights, readily sacrificing the former to seemingly protect the latter, when they are very much entangled.”
Back in an-Naqab, although Israel has temporarily suspended the afforestation project, Sasa said the town: “Like the rest of Palestine, continues to struggle against Israeli colonialism.”
She added: “I call upon environmentalists worldwide to recognise their complicity, condemn all human rights violations, and view human and environmental rights as interrelated.”
Social media is bold.
Social media is young.
Social media raises questions.
Social media is not satisfied with an answer.
Social media looks at the big picture.
Social media is interested in every detail.
social media is curious.
Social media is free.
Social media is irreplaceable.
But never irrelevant.
Social media is you.
(With input from news agency language)
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