US embassy cable - 03ANKARA7881

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 007881 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/SE, EUR/PPD 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO, PTER, TU 
SUBJECT: COMBATING MISINFORMATION - THE CASE OF "YENI SAFAK" 
 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. On October 22, "Yeni Safak," an Islamist-oriented Turkish 
daily close to the AKP Government, ran a story claiming that 
U.S. forces in Iraq had raped "at least 4,000" Iraqi women 
since the end of the war.  The misinformation was based on a 
distortion of an article written by Dr. Susan Block, a U.S.- 
based sex therapist who runs a string of pornographic 
websites.  "Yeni Safak" identified their "source" by name 
only, and the myth of an American mass rape campaign in Iraq 
was born.  For the past two months, the Embassy and 
Consulate Istanbul have engaged in a multi-front campaign to 
prevent the story from spreading and to embarrass the 
editors of "Yeni Safak" to acknowledge their fabrication. 
Following a December 15 commentary in Turkey's leading daily 
"Hurriyet," which included extensive remarks by the 
Ambassador regarding press responsibility in general and the 
specific damage done by the rape story, "Yeni Safak" has 
finally run up the white flag.  The paper's representatives 
in Ankara and Istanbul have told us they are "embarrassed" 
by the "mistake" and two lengthy articles by "Yeni Safak" 
columnists critical of the decision to publish the story 
have appeared on the paper's ombudsman page.  The reporter 
who wrote the story has been forced to resign from the 
paper.  The incident demonstrates the power of deliberate 
disinformation in the Turkish media environment and provides 
lessons in how a concerted mission effort can achieve 
progress in turning it around.  End Summary. 
 
 
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TURKISH PAPER ALLEGES U.S. RAPE CAMPAIGN IN IRAQ... 
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2. The editors and columnists at Islamist-oriented "Yeni 
Safak" have long been skeptical of U.S. motives in Iraq and 
consistently criticized U.S. policy in Iraq and the region. 
Despite the paper's anti-U.S. editorial slant, however, the 
October 22 "news" story in "Yeni Safak" claiming that U.S. 
forces in Iraq had raped more than 4,000 Iraqi women was 
shocking.  Erroneous and exaggerated reporting is common in 
the Turkish press, both secular and Islamist, but the scale 
of the lie and the effect it could have on the paper's 
conservative readers made the report particularly egregious. 
The report cited a single source for its allegations - an 
American named Dr. Susan Block.  Several minutes of internet 
research revealed that Dr. Block is in fact a "sex 
therapist" who also runs a string of pornographic websites. 
Armed with that information, the Embassy issued an immediate 
press release denouncing the disinformation and condemning 
the use of a clearly unreliable source to disseminate such a 
damaging claim.  We also contacted Mustafa Karaalioglu, the 
paper's Ankara representative, to express our outrage. 
Karaalioglu said he agreed that the report "hurt the 
credibility" of "Yeni Safak," and promised to pass our 
complaint and his own disappointment with the story to his 
editors in Istanbul. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
...THEN BLAMES ISTANBUL BOMBINGS ON CIA/MOSSAD 
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3. The editors either didn't get the message, or they chose 
to ignore it.  On November 19, four days after two terrorist 
suicide bombers killed more than 25 people in attacks 
against two Istanbul synagogues, "Yeni Safak" ran a front- 
page story claiming the bombings were the work of an Egypt- 
based organization which is "known to have worked on behalf 
of the CIA and MOSSAD in the past."  Once again, we 
expressed our outrage to Karaalioglu, who repeated his 
frustration with the paper's management in Istanbul. 
Embassy Public Affairs Counselor contacted the MFA 
Spokesman, who promised to pass a message to the Foreign 
Minister (then traveling in Sweden) that such fabrications 
do enormous harm to the Turkish-U.S. relationship and to 
Turkey's own reputation as a modern, Western-oriented 
democracy.  The DCM reinforced these points with an advisor 
to the Foreign Minister, pointing out that these reports, 
coming from a paper perceived to be friendly to the GOT, 
undercut the ability of the Government to pursue its policy 
objectives, especially in the war on terrorism. 
 
 
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THE PATTERN CONTINUES: "RAPES IN SAMARRA" 
----------------------------------------- 
 
 
4. Despite these warnings, "Yeni Safak" continued to spew 
out more lies.  On December 3, the paper ran yet another 
story of an alleged rape campaign by U.S. troops in Iraq. 
"Yeni Safak" claimed that a well-publicized clash between 
U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents in the town of Samarra 
began after the local population rioted to protest the 
kidnapping and rape of the town's virgins.  The story 
further claimed that all 54 persons allegedly killed in the 
battle were civilians. 
 
 
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THE TIDE TURNS: CRITICISM FROM WITHIN 
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5. The day after the Samarra report, Congen Istanbul PAO met 
with the editor-in-chief of "Yeni Safak," Selahattin 
Sadikoglu.  While not appearing to give ground on the 
substance of the reports or the decision to publish them, 
Sadikoglu said he was eager to establish a dialogue with the 
Consulate.  The following day, an article criticizing the 
decision to publish the "poorly-sourced" story on the 
Samarra incident appeared on the daily ombudsman page in 
"Yeni Safak."  Remarkably, the article was signed by two of 
the paper's own writers, including one of its most prominent 
columnists.  (Comment: the ombudsman page generally includes 
letters from the public on a specific issue or criticism of 
false or misleading media reports in other Turkish papers. 
We had never before seen "Yeni Safak" turn the gun on 
itself. End Comment.) 
 
 
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AMBASSADOR WARNS OF "REAL CONSEQUENCES" OF DISINFORMATION 
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6. On December 5, the popular Turkish daily "Milliyet" ran a 
front-page interview with the family of Ilyas Kuncak, 
suicide bomber in the November 20 attack against the HSBC 
center in Istanbul.  During the interview, two of Kuncak's 
teenage children tried to justify their father's action as 
his response to "the rape of Iraqi women by U.S. forces in 
Iraq."  Kuncak's son suggested that the rape reports were at 
least part of the motivation for his father's action. In a 
December 10 on-the-record session with the Ankara print 
media (which included "Yeni Safak") the Ambassador 
explicitly linked the fabricated reports to the "Milliyet" 
interview.  Although he did not specifically name "Yeni 
Safak," the Ambassador did describe it as "odd" that a 
"conservative" newspaper would use such a source for its 
news on Iraq.  Pointing out the "real consequences" of 
irresponsible press reporting, the Ambassador made an 
impassioned plea for editors to check their sources 
thoroughly before going to press, particularly with stories 
that may incite people to violence. 
 
 
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"YENI SAFAK" RUNS UP THE WHITE FLAG 
----------------------------------- 
 
 
7. Although the Ambassador's comments on press 
responsibility did not appear in the initial accounts of his 
press session, the influential "Hurriyet" columnist Sedat 
Ergin ran the comments in a separate story on December 15. 
Ergin named "Yeni Safak" directly and, using the 
Ambassador's remarks, forcefully condemned the paper's 
editorial judgment and ridiculed its source for the rape 
report.  On the morning that Ergin's article appeared in 
"Hurriyet," the Embassy and Congen Istanbul were approached 
separately by "Yeni Safak" representatives, both of whom 
expressed extreme regret for the incident.  They said the 
paper was "embarrassed" by the "mistakes" that had been made 
in publishing the rape stories.  Karaalioglu, the Ankara 
rep, said the original rape report had been written by an 
"inexperienced" reporter who didn't look carefully at his 
source.  He acknowledged that "Yeni Safak" editors had been 
"negligent" in not questioning the report, and expressed 
alarm at what the entire episode - especially the "Hurriyet" 
column - might do to the paper's credibility.  We have been 
told that the reporter who wrote the initial phony rape 
story has now resigned from the paper. 
 
 
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A FOOTNOTE: DR. BLOCK RESPONDS 
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8. In an interesting footnote, Dr. Susan Block, the American 
"sex therapist" who was cited as the source of the rape 
claim, contacted the Embassy from the United States on 
December 19 to complain that she had never said or written 
that U.S. forces had raped Iraqi women.  Dr. Block noted, 
correctly, that her article, titled "The Rape of Iraq," was 
an effort to use rape as a metaphor for the Iraq war.  We 
assured Dr. Block that the Embassy effort to kill this false 
story was never intended to target her.  Any negative 
feedback she may have received as the result of the story, 
we pointed out, was purely the responsibility of "Yeni 
Safak." 
 
 
COMMENT 
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9. It remains to be seen whether the negative fallout for 
"Yeni Safak" from this episode will have any impact on the 
paper's willingness to distort the truth.  A relationship 
has been established with the editor-in-chief, and in 
response to two invitations to cover Consulate Istanbul 
events, the paper has published articles that are 
uncharacteristically favorable toward the U.S.  Although the 
positive may not last, we believe that our effort to 
discredit these lies has put the Turkish press on notice 
that the Mission is watching what they publish and is not 
afraid to challenge them, or even to embarrass them publicly 
when they cross the line.  Several journalists from other 
newspapers have approached us privately to express support 
for our aggressive response.  They understand that such 
blatant fabrications discredit the entire Turkish press, not 
just the papers that publish them.  They also recognize 
another fundamental reality of the Turkish media environment 
- that a story, no matter how ludicrous or farfetched it may 
appear, will be believed by many Turks if it goes 
unchallenged.  End Comment. 
 
 
EDELMAN