Erdogan accuses West of ‘double standards’ on freedom of media

ANKARA (AA) – Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused the West of adopting “double standards” on freedom of media.

Speaking at the 7th Anatolian Media Awards ceremony in the capital Ankara, Erdogan said: “Those accusing Türkiye of censorship remain silent about those (Twitter) doing real censorship.

“We are witnessing the same double standard in the process of a social media company, which has been recently taken over,” Erdogan said, alluding to Twitter and the recent release of its internal files.

He added: “With whom this social media platform, which supposedly never compromises on freedom and personal privacy, does business, what it serves behind the scenes, and how it censors people and ideas that it does not like are revealed one by one.”

He said international media and human rights organizations were silent on such scandals.

“Those who usurped the right of communication of billions of people continue to talk about democracy and freedoms as if nothing happened,” he said.

Referring to the 2013 Gezi Park protests, the Turkish president said those who tried to present “looters in Türkiye as heroes, defined the demonstrators as terrorists when similar events took place in Paris and Washington.”

He went on to say: “We have not seen or heard of any international media outlets calling the ‘yellow vest’ protesters who set the French streets on fire as apostles of democracy, and those who raided the US Capitol building with guns as freedom fighters.”