New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its annual prison census, which tracks cases of journalists jailed for their work globally.
The report alleges that Iran is the world’s worst jailer, with 42 journalists behind bars, while "imprisonments were also reported in the stable democracy of Turkey, which was holding eight journalists."
With this factually low figure about Turkey, CPJ has managed to outrage independent journalists all over the world and gave a weapon at the hands of the pro-government forces in Turkey, who are systematically undermining the media freedoms.
After all, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had found out that Turkey was holding 57 journalists in April 2011, including prominent reporters like Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık. More up-to-date reports by other independent observers like the ones by the Council of Europe or the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), as well as the Freedom For Journalists Platform (GÖP), an umbrella organization comprised of 94 national and local media associations in Turkey, revealed that the current figure is 64.
Following the huge reaction, CPJ posted a reply to its blog and stepped back to tell that there were "several tallies, but one conclusion on Turkish press freedom: Press freedom in Turkey is under assault."
Unfortunately, such a weak response doesn't fulfill the expectations of those who would like to hear a more precise clarification, because the pro-government media in Turkey is still using CPJ's unexpectedly wrong report as an evidence to prove that there are not so many arrested journalists in Turkey.
Without such a clarification, as Haluk Şahin, a prominent Turkish journalist and scholar, has recently tweeted, CPJ can now be renamed as "CHJ, Committee to Harm Journalists, especially the Turkish ones."
Moreover, some readers who reacted on the blog of CPJ imply that this New York-based organization is twisting the facts to adopt a similar line with the U.S. foreign policy. They allege that this is why they are highlighting the grave situation of Iranian journalists, while underrating the Turkish ones.
I don't want to believe in this conspiracy theory. Like Alison Bethel McKenzie, IPI's Executive Director, has recently written in a letter to the New York-based organization, "I hold CPJ, and the remarkable work it does in the defence of press freedom in enormously high regard. But, in this particular instance, I am unable to understand the reasoning or methodology behind the conclusion at which CPJ has arrived."
So, now CPJ should publish a full announcement, not a blog post, about Turkey, admitting that they did a poor job in the Turkish chapter in the report, where they referred only to one source, Bianet (and even this sole referral was misleading).
Finally, they should also explain why they relied on the figures given by the Turkish government to decide who were imprisoned because of journalism and who were not, while using a completely different methodology in Iran. Then, maybe, they can truthfully determine the world's worst jailer of journalists...
