ISTANBUL: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday rejected growing criticism that his government was muzzling the press, saying many Western countries had worse records on media freedom.
Erdogan’s speech to parliament followed a report by the US-based watchdog Freedom House earlier this month, which downgraded Turkey’s status from “partly free” to “not free” and said the country had seen the biggest decline in press freedom in Europe.
“Those who say that there is no press freedom in Turkey should take a look at the headlines of the daily newspapers in Turkey. A significant number of them systematically insult the government,” he told parliament.
“When you criticise these immoral headlines, they call you a dictator. But in other countries, they call it democracy,” he said.
“Let’s see what happens when one of these headlines is published in the countries deemed freer than Turkey. I can’t imagine what would happen to the journalists and the newspapers of those countries.
“We will not bow to these monuments of arrogance.”
Erdogan cited violations of press freedom in the United States, Israel and Germany, saying Turkey had a better record than any of them.
The Turkish premier has come under mounting pressure since audio recordings spread across social media that appeared to put him at the heart of a major corruption scandal that erupted in mid-December, implicating key government allies.
In some of the leaked audio recordings, Erdogan is allegedly heard pressuring media bosses to fire dissenting journalists, interfering in media coverage and erupting in anger over newspaper headlines critical of him or his government.
In response, he launched a wide-ranging crackdown on the Internet that saw Twitter banned for two weeks. A similar ban on YouTube imposed in March remains in place despite several court orders calling for it to be lifted.
The Freedom House report said 44 journalists were behind bars in Turkey, but Erdogan claimed there were only 18 imprisoned journalists, all convicted of criminal offences and not because they are journalists.
AFP
ISTANBUL: Turkey yesterday said it will defy a European court order to pay €90m in compensation to Greek Cypriots over its 1974 invasion of the island.
The European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to pay the damages this week, 13 years after finding it guilty of “massive and continuous” rights violations against Greek Cypriots on the island.
But Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country would not be bound by the ruling.
“Considering the grounds of this ruling, its method, and the fact that it is a country that Turkey does not recognise, we do do not find it necessary to make this payment,” he said.
AFP
