Like most of the world, we have watched the rapid decline of civil liberties in Turkey after the election of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his coalition of Islamic parties. Just last month, we discussed the arrest of Mehmet Emin Altunses, 16, who allegedly committed the crime of “insulting” Erdoğan. calling people who use birth control “traitors” and saying Muslims discovered America, you are not allowed to be disrespectful or insulting in discussing Erdoğan. The situation is even more dire for journalists who have found themselves threatened or arrested for reporting on Erdogan or his cronies. Now, Turkish police have arrested Dutch reporter Frederike Geerdink on terrorism charges. Erdoğan responded with one of his signature delusional statements, saying that this is just one more “false” report from Western media since it is about terrorism not journalism. It is his statement about the record of Turkey on press freedoms that truly takes Erdoğan’s menacing comments into the realm of madness.
Geerdink has raised the ire of the Turkish military by writing about civilian deaths from military bombing runs in Kurdish areas. She is based in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir tweeted that police had searched her home and were taking her into custody on charges related to “propaganda for a terrorist organization”.
When confronted on the latest attack on the media, Erdoğan struck back and insisted that this is yet another “attempt to tarnish Turkey by using press freedom when it is in fact measures taken against terrorism. I dispute this. Nowhere in Europe or in other countries is there a media that is as free as the press in Turkey.”
As free as anywhere in the world? Once can discount Erdoğan’s rewriting of history to insert Muslims at critical discoveries, but even authoritarian figures usually try to maintain remotely plausible claims.
Turkey ranked 154 out of 180 in press-freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders’s 2014 World Press Freedom Index. That puts Turkey with such countries as Gambia and Swaziland.
Source: Guardian
Bruce, do you still have your Dr, and your plan? I thought reporters got one question because Obama takes 15 minutes to answer.
Inga, how do you like your representative voting for the ACA without reading it. It’s like signing a huge contract in your name
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/03/20/local_phoenix_reporter_reveals_jay_carney_s_white_house_briefings_are_scripted_with_questions_submitted_in_advance
Bush wasn’t an outright LIAR like Obama unless you don’t count yellow cake uranium as a WMD.
Nick and Paul C are absolutely correct to be appalled by his chilling account of the Phx reporter who had to pre-submit questions to Obama and no follow-ups were allowed.
This administration’s treatment of the press is obviously one step behind Stalin’s Russia. I’m submitting Paul’s account to the Piers Morgan School of Freedom of the Press and Religious Liberty Hero Award. All I need is a few small minor details – the reporter’s name, employer, date of Obama treachery, the reporter’s published account of treachery, photos of his/her beaten body and ripped fingernails, and video of Obama’s feckless pathetic apology.
In the meantime, we are planning one hell of a celebration honoring Paul C. at the nearest Italian Sub Sandwich outlet featuring free Mountain Dew to all celebrants! We all need to salute such courageous honest fearless reporting from the citizen journalists here at the Turley blog.
Wadewilliams – SHE apologized, not Obama!
What idiots voted for Bush twice?
Paul,
Obama is the most recent symptom of the root problem: voter ignorance, apathy and dependence.
I love watching people act as if the Obama administration started the manipulation of the press that we see today.
But please, feel free to act as if this guy is the one that started it. Your blindness to facts in the past is why we have a President that abuses his power now. This is why you should alway be vigilant when our leaders take new power for themselves, because every person after them will assume the same abusive level of power and just like their predecessor, attempt to increase that abusive level of power.
Americans have a real problem with thinking their side is good and all of the others are bad. The truth is that all of the sides are corrupt. Pretending that things were OK before Obama is so blatently dishonest that it makes me question if anyone actually cares about the abuse of power, or are they just whining about it because a Democrat is the current one doing it.
Obama is not the problem. The American public is for allowing multiple decades of abuse by the office of the President, and the government in general. Just because it bothers you now doesn’t mean that Obama is the problem. Our political process is a scam, but people would rather blame a political party that weed out the corruption.
But it must be nice to blame the failure of the America public on one guy and a television station. That really is the American way, blame everyone else and never actually do the had work of fixing anything.
Daniel Frankovitch – Obama is the current problem
Pig Latin courtesy of Busby Berkeley at 1:37
Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs.
Paul, That’s a chilling example of the Emperor wore no clothes.
The origins of Pig Latin are unknown. A youthful Thomas Jefferson wrote letters to friends in Pig Latin.[1] One early mention of the name was in Putnam’s Magazine in May 1869 “I had plenty of ammunition in reserve, to say nothing, Tom, of our pig Latin. ‘Hoggibus, piggibus et shotam damnabile grunto,’ and all that sort of thing,” although the language cited is not modern Pig Latin, but rather what would be called today Dog Latin.
The Atlantic January 1895 also included a mention of the subject: “They all spoke a queer jargon which they themselves had invented. It was something like the well-known ‘pig Latin’ that all sorts of children like to play with.”
Rules[edit]
The usual rules for changing standard English into Pig Latin are as follows:
For words that begin with consonant sounds, the initial consonant or consonant cluster is moved to the end of the word, and “ay” (some people just add “a”) is added, as in the following examples:
“pig” → “igpay”
“banana” → “ananabay”
“trash” → “ashtray”
“happy” → “appyhay”
“duck” → “uckday”
“glove” → “oveglay”
For words that begin with vowel sounds or silent letter, you just add “way” (or “wa”) to the end. Examples are:
“egg” → “eggway”
“inbox” → “inboxway”
“eight” → “eightway”
Some people also follow this rule with words that begin with vowel sounds, only the first letter is moved to the end of the word, then you just add “way” after.
–The above is from Wikipedia on Pig Latin.
The only transparent thing about this administration is the glass house that apparently the MSM can’t see through.
East of Corfu the itShay list applies. Fly over and flush. Pig Latin for WordPress. Say what you want. Mean what you say. Free speech on the internet highway. So, open up people and say what you want to say. Lets hear more Pig Latin.
Erdo Ghan, Erod Ghan!
Greatest city in Turkistan!
Clear across this great big land.
There aint no place like Erdoghan!
–Randy Newman, Birmingham music. Ferguson can be inserted for Birmingham, since Ferguson is the greatest city in Ala Bam.
I wonder how the Dutch Government is going to react to this.
De Telegraaf reports she was released and is now under house arrest.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/23524443/__Huisarrest_voor_journaliste__.html
Paul, Sheryl Attkisson has sued the DOJ for hacking into her computer when she was working on Fast and Furious. Two computer analysts have searched her computer and both say the tools used are proprietary of the US govt. Looks like our Chicago pol prez has the NSA working w/ the DOJ. When Obama leaves and the compliant MSM starts doing their job, we will be sown on the list w/ Turkey.
Nick – a TV reporter here in Phx made the mistake of reporting that she had been told that she had to have all her questions to the President vetted and then she was only given 15 mins. and they kept a clock. There could be no follow up questions. All hell broke loose when she reported this. She was a traitor to all journalists everywhere for exposing that Obama was controlling the media. She was supposed to keep that quiet. I think she actually apologized for doing it.
He could be right. Obama has manipulated the American press so much that they don’t even get to take their own pictures of him any more. They are given ‘official’ pictures of the President taken by the official photographer. Since we have the ‘most transparent administration evah’ the Turks could be right. As bad as they are, we could be worse.
Free speech more difficult to exercise. See also Greenwald:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/06/police-increasingly-monitoring-criminalizing-online-speech/
Baghdad Bob speaks again.
What is it about politicians that they can make the stupidest statements and appear to believe them?