Media Censorship during the British Occupation

Turkish Historian and author Atilla Oral explains the days of occupation as follows:

The enemy fleet that anchored in Bosphorus Strait had very important duties. They didn't stay in Istanbul for five years only to keep up the appearance. It was a part of a sinister and strategically devised plan of intimidation.³⁰²

The intimidation tactics were meant to suppress people and to break their spirit. The propaganda targeting the people was considered important, because the British deep state wanted to stop people's support for the nationalist movement.

As explained previously, the British deep state sought to impair the 'nationalist and patriotic values' of the peoples since the beginning. The main reason was because when a society strays away from such values, its downfall comes very quickly. The British deep state surmised that a movement unsupported by the public would no longer be 'national' and therefore concentrated on psychological anti-propaganda.

For the British deep state, one of the ways to do that was censorship of the media. Therefore, during the occupation, the Turkish press was heavily censored. The newspapers were first examined by the censor officers working for the British deep state before they were published, and any content or picture not found suitable was not allowed to be printed. If the British deep state didn't approve a certain photograph or writing, it would be removed. As a result, many newspapers during that time had to be printed with empty columns. It was a major crime to publish pictures not carrying the remark "Censored by Allied Authorities - The Censor".

The entire visual evidence of the crimes committed by the British deep state against humanity was thus almost completely obliterated. For a long time, it wasn't possible to locate any pictures proving that Istanbul was ever occupied, due to the British deep state's systematic move to collect all war photos. When these photos were later retrieved from the British archives, the Turkish people were taken aback. Atilla Oral explains how he got a hold of those pictures:

British archives have an abundant number of important, visual evidence regarding the Turkish War of Independence and the occupation years. It is said that the British state makes available its archive to the researchers after a while, but it is true only for written documents. It is different for visuals or audio recordings. I have collected documents and photographs for the past 20 years to be able to write this book. Almost all of the pictures I used came from British sources and auctions. Photographs kept by the occupation forces for decades are now sold by their great-grand children, effectively revealing many parts of history kept under shadows until now.³⁰³

The censorship effectively prevented the Turkish people from seeing the tyranny of the British deep state, their dirty secrets, which were revealed only after the war, and the injustice and torturous side of the occupation. Only in the 21^st century are we now able to see the extent of the violence and tyranny that took place. Nevertheless, and despite all the efforts to curb it, the nationalist campaign thrived in a way that completely shocked the British deep state. Spies and censors couldn't hinder the foresight of the Turkish people, and the plots of the British deep state failed one by one.