Freedom House: “Turkish web freedom in sharp decline”

Freedom House, the Washington-based rights monitoring organization has again slammed Turkey for the rapid erosion of basic liberties in a report on Internet freedom released today (4 December). The report complains of a sharp decline in web freedom worldwide but says nowhere has that decline been steeper than Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.
 
In May this year, Freedom House lambasted the state of press freedom in Turkey, demoting it to “not free.” Turkish web denizens do not fare quite so badly. They are still assessed as “partly free.” In a human rights report card in which lower means better, Turkey scores 55 points putting it on a par with Zimbabwe and Azerbaijan. 
 
The report entitled “Freedom on the Net 2014 emphasises the rate of decline. Whereas Russia sank by11 points over the last three years Turkey has fallen by 13. In making their assessment, evaluators consider a host of factors including whether authorities block social, political or religious content and whether internet reporters and bloggers face prosecution or arrest.
 
Turkey has been weighed and found wanting. “The government increased censorship, granted state agencies broad powers to block content, and charged more people for online expression,” the report says.
 
Turkey is also one of 19 countries that passed legislation that increased surveillance or restricted user anonymity. The report refers to April 2014 changes in the law on the National Intelligence Organization that “further insulated the agency’s activities from judicial or media scrutiny.” Amendments “empower the intelligence service to obtain information and electronic data from public bodies, private companies, and individuals without a court order.”
 
It is not simply the legal environment that has deteriorated. The report complains of the targeting of social media users and of opposition news sites coming under cyberattack and online journalists facing assault.
 
Turkey is an extreme example of a growing trend, according to Freedom House.  Over half the 65 countries evaluated are on a downward trajectory, the fourth straight year of decline. “Some states are using the revelations of widespread surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as an excuse to augment their own monitoring capabilities, frequently with little or no oversight, and often aimed at the political opposition and human rights activists,” the report writes.
 
In Turkey, the Net clampdown followed from the leaking of “audio recordings implicating high-level officials in a corruption scandal were leaked on YouTube and SoundCloud. New legal measures empowered the state regulator to block websites without a court order in cases that violate privacy or are considered “discriminatory or insulting.”
 
The report goes on: “Turkish regulators then blocked YouTube to suppress an unverified recording of a national security meeting. Twitter was also blocked after refusing to suspend user accounts. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, vowed to “wipe out Twitter” and called social media the worst menace to society.” 

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