With the constitutional amendment referendum held in Turkey on April 16, 2017, a new movement arose in European media, which is still ongoing ahead of the June 24 elections. Numerous newspapers and magazines, who had previously not given much coverage to Turkey, began to include captions written in Turkish before the referendum.
A Germany-based newspaper notorious for its negative reports against Turkey and Turks featured a picture of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on its front page. They also spread propaganda against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the constitutional reform in both German and Turkish.
Much of the European media, in particular Turkish-language media based in Germany, made an effort to mobilize Turkish voters in Germany to vote "no" in the referendum. From the tabloids to prestigious newspapers, most focused on a defeat of Erdoğan in the polls.
They ceaselessly insulted Erdoğan by referring to him as a dictator. Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) were constantly smeared. On the other hand, the opposition leader propagating the "no" campaign was hyperbolically praised. Even ones within the opposition party were surprised by the praise since they were also aware of the true competence of their leader.
All of the insults, lies, manipulation and propaganda have been futile. The Turkish electorate in Europe said "yes" to the new constitution with an overwhelming majority.
Thanks to this result, Turkey attained a new and modern constitution as of April 16, 2017. This constitution enabled the transition to the presidential system, which will accelerate Turkey's modernization, democratization and consolidation processes. Currently, early elections are to be held on June 24, in which the Turkish electorate will head to two separate ballot boxes for parliamentary and presidential elections.
Unfortunately, the European media seems to have not learned any lessons from the referendum process as they are still pursuing their heinous methods to hamper the elections. In Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland and several other European countries, media outlets kicked off a propaganda campaign against Erdoğan and the AK Party. Again, all kinds of insults, lies and propaganda tools have been employed for this sake.
The newspapers and magazines in Europe insult Erdoğan every day. Some baseless allegations are even put in captions. The president they referred to as a dictator is a democratically elected leader. In all the elections he has participated in so far, he was elected by a landslide. It is not by any means ethical to call a democratically elected leader a dictator. However, the European media has already breached press ethics when it comes to this subject.
With this attitude, the European media has proven that they do not respect democratic elections and voter preferences in Turkey. They have gone too far - I am afraid the future news reports might suggest a fascistic coup in Turkey.
Evidently, they are highly disturbed by the fact that Turkey is a strong, social and democratic country, and they definitely want to hamper Turkey's development. They believe that the only way to achieve this is to overthrow Erdoğan, who enjoys the love and trust of the nation. They have gone to great lengths to realize their goals. To that end, they are constantly disregarding democratic values, press ethics and all the EU values that uphold democracy.
Apparently, the only goal of European media outlets up to the June 24 elections will be to hamper Erdoğan and prevent a strong Turkey. But they have still not realized that their actions have consequences; Turkish citizens resent what they are doing. The Turkish people are patiently waiting to reply to these heinous actions at the ballot boxes. The European media and those organizing operations to shape the electorate's opinion will be defeated on June 24. The saddest part is that this trend is causing irreparable damage to the relations between countries, which is a shame.
