{"id":152458,"date":"2012-01-10T12:09:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T08:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=152458"},"modified":"2012-01-10T12:11:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-10T08:11:18","slug":"norway-criticizes-turkey-restrictions-on-free-speech-media-freedoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/01\/10\/norway-criticizes-turkey-restrictions-on-free-speech-media-freedoms.html","title":{"rendered":"Norway Criticizes Turkey Restrictions on Free Speech, Media Freedoms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (pictured) has praised Turkey\u2019s democratic progress but questioned respect for free speech and media freedoms, joining mounting international misgivings over Ankara\u2019s record, the <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/norwegian-pm-slams-turkey-over-free-press.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=11103&amp;NewsCatID=338\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>H<\/strong><strong>\u00fc<\/strong><strong>rriyet Daily News<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Despite major advancements in human rights and women\u2019s rights in recent years, Turkey faces \u201cdifficulties regarding freedom of expression, as many other countries have pointed out. The subject of whether journalists are working freely is also an issue,\u201d Stoltenberg said during talks with Parliament Speaker Cemil \u00c7i\u00e7ek yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c7i\u00e7ek responded the majority of jailed journalists were charged for terror-related offenses and not for their reporting activities and slammed European countries for failing to give Turkey adequate support against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a misevaluation regarding journalists. They are not in prison for doing their job. They are in prison for being members of a terrorist organization, forging documents and other such illegal activities. Evaluating them as journalists would be a serious mistake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In further remarks, Stoltenberg praised Turkey\u2019s economic growth, stressing that bilateral cooperation could be expanded especially in the energy, shipbuilding and seafood sectors.<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s democratic credentials were also on the agenda of Stoltenberg\u2019s meeting with main opposition leader Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, sources of the Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) said. Voicing his concerns, K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu stressed lengthy pre-trial detentions had become a punishment in themselves and the special-authority courts had degenerated into a government tool to bully and silence critics. \u201cThose issues are very important and should be carefully followed,\u201d Stoltenberg was quoted as saying in response.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Wikipedia<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has praised Turkey\u2019s democratic progress but questioned respect for free speech and media freedoms.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[21524,36496,21516,17142,11397,10222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}