Turkey rated as "not free" in new global press freedom assessment

Link: Freedom House

"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 sympa thetic coverage of the protesters' demands," the Washington-based watchdog said.

"Other prominent journalists were fired due to their cover age of sensitive issues like negotiations between the government and the PKK or the corruption scandals involving Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] 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."

As a result of all this, Turkey lost six points of the score for press freedom that Freedom House gave it in 2013. With 62 points, it was ranked 134th among the 197 countries included in the watchdog's Freedom of the Press 2014 report.

Each of the surveyed countries receives a numerical score from 0 (the most free) to 100 (the least free), which serves as the basis for a press-freedom status designation of "free" (score of 0 to 30), "partly free" (31 to 60), or "not free" (61 to 100).

Turkey emerged as the worst performer among a total of 11 EU member states and official candidates in Southeast Europe (SEE), including also Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

However, only two of them made it into the group of "free" countries on press freedom. With a score of 24 points, Slovenia was ranked highest among the 11 SEE countries. It was placed 39th in the world, along with Grenada and Lithuania, while Cyprus shared the 42nd position with four other nations on the basis of a grade of 25 points.

The other eight countries were all rated as "partly free," with Italy scoring best among them. Its 31-point mark entitled it to the 64th place in the world, along with Chile, Namibia and Nauru. Serbia (37 points) took the 74th place, ahead of Bulgaria and Montenegro, both ranked 78th, with 39 points. Croatia was placed 83rd and Romania 84th, on the basis of their grades of 40 points and 41 points, respectively.

With a score of 46, which is five points worse than the one it was given last year, Greece was placed 92nd in the world, emerging as the EU's worst performer. It was also named as the country with the biggest decline on press freedom for the period 2009-2013.

With a score of 57 points, Macedonia was ranked 122nd in the world.