Turkey and Belarus; Embarrassments of Europe

By Leon J Williams

Reporters without borders’ Press Freedom Index (PFI) for 2012 shows a shocking but painfully accurate picture of press freedoms around the world.

As with most tables and indexes there are no real surprises, the top positions are filled with European countries (in particular Scandinavian countries) and Canada while the US languishes in 32nd place.

This table appropriately highlights two dreadful countries that blight Europe’s progressive attitude and stance on press freedom (as is true for freedom in general); Turkey and Belarus.

The full table can be found here.

Turkey is 154th in the world and Belarus is 157th.

While Belarus is getting better (up 11 places from last year) Turkey is getting worse, moving down 6 places.

In a statement Reporters Without Borders said “Turkey is currently the worlds biggest prison for journalists, especially those who express views critical of the authorities on the Kurdish issue”

In response Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “We don’t care about some notes given by some associations” he went on to say “Those institutions’ sources are out of order. We make our decisions on our own.”

This complete disregard for wrongly imprisoned people is absolutely disgraceful and a clear sign that while Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party stay in power Turkey will never have freedom of speech nor real freedom in general.

There is no way that Turkey can be allowed to join the European Union (EU) and more countries in the EU should be voicing their concerns at Turkey’s EU application.