World press on political situation in Turkey (May 3, 2014)

On Saturday Hürriyet Daily News published an article by Serkan Demirtaş headlined "Whitewashing corruption-restricting press freedom."

"It has been more than four months since a legal prosecution investigating one of the country’s most important corruption and graft networks was launched. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his family members, and some Cabinet members were accused of corruption and there were claims that the prime minister immediately urged his son, Bilal Erdoğan, to remove the cash in their house to another safe place as a precaution," the article begins.

"All detainees were released pending trial on the eve of the local elections and yesterday reports showed that prosecutors had dismissed cases against 60 suspects, including the son of former Environment and Urbanization Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar and construction tycoon Ali Ağaoğlu, in the second leg of the graft probe regarding illegal construction permits. Prosecutors cited “lack of evidence” as the reason for their move," the author writes.

"In normal democracies, corruption allegations are deemed to be very important and efficient investigation of such claims is regarded to be very important for the sake of democracy. Covering up corruption claims is, however, seen as the worst form of a growing totalitarian regime, as transparency and accountability are the main pillars of democratic regimes," the author writes.

"Now, mentioning U.S. think tank Freedom House’s recently released press freedom report becomes an obligation at this point. Restricting press freedom and covering up corruption claims are typical indicators of an authoritarian regime. To this end, the Freedom House report does not offer much: Turkey has been relegated from the league of “Partly Free” countries to the league of “Not Free” countries," the author informs.

"Today’s Turkey reflects a bunch of politicians corrupting the country’s richness and future of its children, and a bunch of newspapers and television channels distorting reality. I am not so sure which is worse," he concludes.