Saturday, 28 January 2012Reporters Without Borders (RWB) released its latest assessment of press freedom in the world this week, naming "crackdown" as the word of the year in 2011.
"Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy," the Paris-based media watchdog noted of the world-wide situation. "Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous."
It also stressed that in countries where civil liberties and freedom of speech are repressed, the outcome will always be suppression of media freedom.
In October 2002, when it released its first global assessment of media freedom, Turkey tied with Jordan for 99th place.
Nine years later it sits at 148th out of 179 countries, falling between Malawi and Mexico, in a major backslide as Turkey follows a path towards democratization.
"At a time when it is portraying itself as a regional model, Turkey took a big step backwards and lost ten places," the RWB noted. "Far from carrying out promised reforms, the judicial system launched a wave of arrests of journalists that was without precedent since the military dictatorship."
In Europe, only Belarus (168th) achieved a lower ranking.
Meanwhile, Greek Cyprus is 16th in this year's survey, up from 45th in the previous one published in October 2010, while the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus dropped 41 places to 102nd.
Bosnia and Herzegovina (58), Kosovo (86) and Moldova (53) all improved. Macedonia is now 94th in the world, ahead of Albania (96), Montenegro (107).
Azerbaijan placed 162nd and Iraq 152nd, while Iran (174) and Syria (175) placed near the bottom of the list.
Bulgaria (80) and Greece (70) have kept their status as the EU's poor performers, while incoming EU member Croatia was 68th.
The best global performers this year are Finland, Norway and Estonia, while Turkmenistan, followed by North Korea and Eritrea came in last. |
Saturday, 28 January 2012
SETimes
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