Q: What do Serbia, Kuwait, Columbia and Nicaragua all have in common?
A: They all have greater press freedom than Turkey.
The latest Press Freedom Rankings issued by the US based organisation Freedom House now have Turkey slipping down a very unpleasant slope - both HDN and TZ reported on this today, and the reasons cited within the report itself are unsurprising.
For those that are interested, these are a few excerpts that relate to Turkey.
Attacking the messenger: Journalists’ ability to cover breaking news came under particular threat in 2013, as those who attempted to report on protest movements in a number of key countries faced physical harassment and even targeted attacks designed to prevent them from documenting these important stories. In Ukraine, several dozen journalists covering the Euromaidan protests were attacked in early December.
Numerous cases were reported in Turkey and Egypt, and to a lesser extent in Brazil, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Jordan, and Uganda. Special protection for members of the press can be difficult to uphold when demonstrations turn violent, and it has become more challenging as the boundaries between accredited journalists, citizen journalists, and civic activists become increasingly blurry. However, the direct targeting of those who were engaged in covering protests during the year was a key factor behind media freedom declines in many countries.
Controlling content via ownership: Economic factors can also play a key role in restricting media independence and diversity, as seen in the impact of ownership changes on editorial content. During the year, press freedom was threatened by new owners at key outlets in a range of countries, including Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela. In some cases, the transaction itself was opaque. In others, the new owners—particularly those with close connections to governments or ruling parties—altered editorial lines or dismissed outspoken staff.
In Turkey, dozens of journalists were forced from their jobs in apparent connection with their coverage of politically sensitive issues like negotiations between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Gezi Park protests, or official corruption scandals. Several high-profile dismissals occurred at Milliyet, a newspaper recently acquired by the Demirören Group, which is sympathetic to the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while others took place at Sabah, which had been sold in 2011 to a company led by Erdoğan’s son-in-law.
Regional Findings: The region’s largest numerical change occurred in Turkey, which declined from 56 to 62 points and moved from Partly Free to Not Free. Constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press and expression are only partially upheld in practice, undermined by restrictive provisions in the criminal code and the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Turkey remained the world’s leading jailer of journalists in 2013, with 40 behind bars as of December 1, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The press freedom climate deteriorated sharply during the year as journalists were harassed and assaulted while attempting to cover the Gezi Park protests that broke out in Istanbul in May, and dozens were fired or forced to resign in response to sympathetic coverage of the protesters’ demands. Other prominent journalists were fired due to their coverage of sensitive issues like negotiations between the government and the PKK or the corruption scandals involving Prime Minister Erdoğan and his associates that emerged in December. The firings highlighted the close relationship between the government and many media owners, and the formal and informal pressure that this places on journalists.
If anyone wants to read the full report, its
here.JF
