That old cliche that Turkey is a bridge between East and West seems not just tired but dead
in the water.
The gulf between here and Europe has become a chasm.
Turkey isolated, self-absorbed, suspicious and afraid .
"Nation Flag Motherland State" says this poster - President Erdogan tying his country's destiny
to his own as its undisputed leader.
It was on this bridge between Europe and Asia six months ago that a military coup against
him failed after protesters chased Turkish soldiers away.
And in its shadow another symbol of Turkey's rampant insecurity.
The Reina nightclub - where 39 people were shot dead and dozens injured by an ISIS gunman
on New Year's Eve.
The seasonal decorations are still hanging here awkwardly.
And in a corner lie the abandoned coats hats and handbags, even the spectacles of those
who cowered in terror.
As ISIS is driven from Syria and Iraq, this is its all too convenient battlefield next
door.
More than 400 people have been killed in terrorist attacks in Turkey in the last 18 months.
President Erdogan has argued that the best way of stopping this chaos is to give him
more power.
But it’s also an opportunity for him to silence his critics, much as the coup attempt
against him was last year.
I saw my name in a government decree on the internet.
In his sparse living room on Istanbul's Asian shore, Recep Cevik is one of a hundred thousand
civil servants who've lost their jobs after finding their names on a list of alleged coup
supporters.
Mr Cevik had been the deputy head of this secondary school and teaching for 15 years.
His daughter Bera is still a pupil there but he is now banned.
So stigmatised that he can't find a job doing anything else.
What does the government say that you’re guilty of?
Guilty of what?
They say, “you are a terrorist.”
A terrorist?
Yeah.
I can’t explain anything.
They don’t believe me.
“You are guilty.
The government is right.”
Mr Cevik seems like a broken man.
My old students.
This photograph of his former pupils a souvenir of a career in ruins.
In Turkey it’s not a case of rounding up the usual suspects, but casting the net far
and wide.
Forty thousand people have been jailed in a nationalist witch hunt - a purge in the
name of saving the nation.
Asli Erdogan is a famous writer who recently emerged from 136 days in custody.
Even though her trial for being an alleged member of a terrorist group hasn't even begun.
She's written for a pro-Kurdish newspaper now forced to close - but says she still doesn't
know why she was singled out.
There are very many hundred of columnists in Turkey sharper than me, more critical,
so why me?
I have absolutely no idea.
Is this country headed towards elected dictatorship, do you think?
Well, if I use the word dictatorship I go straight back to jail.
So I think this is the answer to your question anyway.
Senol Buran is chief tea-maker at Cumhuriyet, Turkey's leading opposition newspaper.
Even he has to watch his words.
Earlier this month he was jailed for 9 days after a police guard at the paper overheard
him saying he wouldn't serve tea to President Erdogan.
I am accused of insulting the President.
In the police statement, apart from the words "I wouldn't serve him tea", the police claimed
I used an insulting word.
That's not a word I would use.
People know.
I've worked here in the newspaper for 12 years.
Several Cumhuriyet journalists have been imprisoned.
And even their teamaker who didn't write a word seems the victim of state sanctioned
paranoia.
And under supervision until his case goes to court.
They released me under condition of judicial control.
I have to go to a police station three days a week.
I have no right to leave Istanbul.
I think this is tragi-comic.
I am sorry for myself and for my country and I am afraid I can be punished for what I say.
Last week Turkish journalists were among those marching in memory of Hrant Dink, the editor
of an Armenian newspaper who was assassinated on this Istanbul street a decade ago.
The security was intense - Turkey is governed under a state of emergency now.
And any public gathering is a potential terrorist target.
But what was most striking was watching one of Turkey's best known broadcasters covering
the event via mobile phone.
Banu Guven is a household name here; though her tv channel was closed down by police after
the coup attempt.
Using social media is she says, the only way she can work.
Do you think you will ever get a job in a big broadcaster again?
Not in the foreseeable future no, no.
No, I mean, the mainstream media is finished.
It just belongs to the President and his men here in Turkey.
The irony is that President Erdogan famously broadcast by mobile phone himself to protest
against the coup and survive it.
Since then over 160 media and publishing organisations have been shut down.
This is a country which didn't have a successful coup last year, yet strangely feels as if
it did.
Even journalists who condemned that coup have been swept up in its wake.
Among them, Ahmet Sik, facing up to 7 and a half years in jail for alleged terrorist
propaganda.
His wife says he has never advocated violence.
The message is to make the people, the public, silent and also the journalism silent because
they don’t want any critical journalist who asked the right questions.
Is he guilty of anything, your husband?
No, he is just a journalist, and he is a very good journalist.
Last weekend, Turkey's parliament voted for a new constitution which would give the President
unprecedented executive power.
The role of Prime minister will be scrapped.
And Mr Erdogan could in theory rule until 2029.
That is if the Turkish public back his plans in a referendum this Spring.
And while many Turks are also frightened of the prospect of one man rule stretching for
years ahead, may others feel reassured by the idea of the same man looking after them,
because the threats are so very grave.
Hilal Kaplan is a newspaper columnist and my first interviewee who isn't nervous about
speaking openly.
Under Erdogan, women like her are much freer to wear headscarves.
- You see all the pictures of PKK members.
And she says foreigners simply don't understand the danger posed by multiple enemies within.
You’re a journalist.
You can’t be proud of the fact that Turkey has more journalists in jail than China.
Hmm.
I mean, it’s not an issue of being proud or not.
It’s not like I’m much enjoying what’s happening in Turkey.
For instance, one of the suicide bombers used to work as a journalist.
So this should tell us something.
It doesn’t mean everyone who is persecuted at the moment is guilty.
I don’t know that.
But when you look case by case, you can see that there is this country fighting for terrorist
organisations and there are so many journalists supporting and promoting the cause and their
arguments and etcetera.
And even if Erdogan's Turkey does turn its back on democratic norms, the fact is that
many Turks might actually agree.
We are a democratic country and he is the elected leader.
He doesn’t lose elections.
So this is Turkey’s choice is what you’re saying?
The direction of the country is the choice of the people.
The choice of the Turkish people should be respected.
Still, Turkey seems adrift from its usual moorings; as the place where east and west
coexist.
A beacon of relative stability?
Well it can't call itself that any longer.
Jonathan Rugman Channel 4 News Istanbul.