Turkey witnessed sharpest decline in freedom: 2018 Freedom Report

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Turkey registered the biggest decline in freedom across the world in 2018 according to a new report, and its status has been downgraded from “Partly Free” to “Not Free.”

Freedom House released its 2018 report on Tuesday and examined the state of affairs in Turkey throughout the previous year. It explained that the status change was due to political rights and civil liberties seeing a sharp decline attributed to “a deeply flawed constitutional referendum that centralized power in the presidency.”

The report mentioned that the “mass replacement of elected mayors” with Ankara-appointed officials, the “arbitrary prosecutions of right activists and other perceived enemies of the state,” and the continued “purges of state employees” have contributed to a sense of insecurity and self-censorship.

A state of emergency was declared in 2016 after the infamous failed putsch against Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It was subsequently extended every three months and allowed the government to “rule by decree.” The crackdown continued throughout 2017, with thousands being arrested and jailed, and in some cases, disappeared.

The status of Net and Press Freedom in Turkey has remained “Not Free” for the past two years, with civil liberties ranking the lowest in the country which is currently focused on fighting what Ankara describes as “terrorist threats at its gates,” referring to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and the US-allied Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG) which both operate on the borders with Turkey.

 Turkey registered the biggest decline in the last decade by 34 points, with the Central African Republic coming in second, and now scores only one point above Iraq in terms of Freedom.  

The breakdown of freedoms in Turkey has also seen the number of books printed in the Kurdish language decrease in 2017, with only 171 released, as century-long state repression amounting to a linguicide crept back after Ankara’s war with Kurdish rebels continued with the collapse of peace talks in recent years.

Researcher and journalist Cemil Oguz said the renewed phase of the conflict negatively affected people’s socio-cultural choices and state of mind.

Turkey is expected to hold presidential elections in 2019, with the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, announcing earlier this month that his party would support Erdogan.