Freedom House responds to Ankara complaint
Says “report only covers 2013,” implying next year will be even worse
05.05.2014
P24
Freedom House, responded today to Turkish government complaints over its down-grading in its annual Freedom of the Press report from “partly free” to “not free.”
In a tersely worded statement the Washington DC based democracy watch-dog said the report only covered events that occurred during 2013. This was in reply to a complaint by Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Turkish foreign minister, that the FH did not mention 12 journalists released from pre-trial detention in the long-running Koma Civakên Kurdistan (KCK) (Group of Communities in Kurdistan) case.
On 1 May, the day of the report’s publication, the foreign minister accused FH of staging “an operation to change perceptions towards Turkey."
“The rating does not take into account events that occurred in Turkey since January 1, 2014. They include the government’s recent releases of journalists in the Ergenekon and KCK cases, regressive changes to Turkey’s Internet law 5651, the blocking of Twitter and YouTube, and increasing the powers of the National Intelligence Agency,” the FH statement read, with the clear implication that next year’s report could be even harsher.
The same statement went on to condemn press coverage of the report in media sympathetic to the government. Without mentioning Star newspaper by name, the statement made reference to the banner headline on 4 May which wrongly claimed that FH was funded by the Israeli lobby and George Soros. It also pointed out that David Kramer, the head of FH, is of Jewish origins.
“Freedom House also notes with concern that some media outlets resorted to anti-Semitism in criticizing the report. Freedom House calls on the government of Turkey to join us in condemning the use of hate speech,” the statement read.