UK's New Statesman apologizes for Žižek's lies about Turkey

The U.K.'s New Statesman magazine has apologized to Anadolu Agency for the lies contained in Slavoj Žižek's article entitled, "We need to talk about Turkey," which it posted on its website on Dec. 9.

In his article, which was part of an ongoing international smear campaign against Turkey and rife with monumental fabrications, Žižek trampled on the ethics of accurate citation and attributed the claims of a website -- notorious for publishing fictitious news articles -- to Anadolu Agency.

When the source of the arguments on which the article was based proved to be fabricated, the New Statesman immediately removed the relevant parts of the article from its website.

Anadolu Agency’s In-Depth News Analysis Desk published an article on Dec. 15 critical of the article in question, in which it asserted that the New Statesman's decision to remove the said sections of the article would only serve to hamper the prospects of healthy discussion.

Anadolu Agency went on to point out that editorial ethics required that the problematic sections of the article be highlighted, with the addition of a note stating, "This information has proved to be unfounded", or, at the very least, "We could not verify this information".

The New Statesman complied with part of this request by adding a note on its website at the end of Žižek's article stating:

"Editor's note, 9 December: This article originally included a statement that was falsely attributed to the head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization Hakan Fidan, supposedly from an interview given to Anadolu Agency, the country’s state-run news agency."

It added: "Anadolu Agency would like to make clear that no such interview was given by Mr. Fidan to Anadolu in which Mr. Fidan ‘condemned Russian military intervention in Syria, accusing Moscow of trying to smother Syria's Islamist revolution... Isis [also known as the ‘Islamic State’ or ‘Daesh’] is a reality and we have to accept that we cannot eradicate a well-organized and popular establishment such as the Islamic State; therefore I urge my western colleagues to revise their mindset about Islamic political currents, put aside their cynical mentalité and thwart Vladimir Putin's plans to crush Syrian Islamist revolutionaries,’ as stated in the original article."

The note concluded: "We have removed the statement. We apologize to the Anadolu Agency for this error. A further statement from AA appears on its website."

In his article, Žižek had made conscious use of sources known for producing fabricated news. He also quoted an article by journalist David Graeber, which he interspersed with baseless claims.

Not satisfied with simply quoting this article, he also added overtly propagandistic material to the quoted paragraph, which contained false claims about "Daesh's oil exports to Turkey" and made the false assertion that "wounded Daesh terrorists are treated in Turkey".

Now it is incumbent on the New Statesman to highlight these false quotes in the article and let its readers know that these sentences were not drawn from Graeber's article.

The proper thing for the New Statesman to do is to keep Žižek’s deceptive article on its website (as a source of discussion), replete with all the highlights and notes, as we mentioned above, since the removal of his arguments -- based on fabricated news and non-existent quotes -- rendered the article void of all meaning.

The magazine should also add a note of apology, stating that the article had been withdrawn.

Developments of this story can be seen by visiting the following links:

'Slavoj Zizek’s shameful bid to tarnish Turkey’s image': http://aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/slavoj-zizek-s-shameful-bid-to-tarnish-turkey-s-image/491548

'The passion of Zizek': http://aa.com.tr/en/analysis-news/the-passion-of-zizek/496045

'Heaven will direct it; correct your very self': http://aa.com.tr/en/analysis-news/heaven-will-direct-it-correct-your-very-self/500396