(the atlantic) Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail assaulted reporters and protesters outside a venue in Washington, D.C., at which the Turkish president was speaking.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail manhandled reporters and protesters at an event at which the Turkish president was speaking.

Turkish media and the president’s critics are by now used to such incidents, but they probably didn’t expect them to happen in Washington, D.C., where Erdogan was speaking at the Brookings Institution.

Erdogan's security guard hit @EmreUslu outside @BrookingsInst. pic.twitter.com/byTXsqSfsA

— Mahir Zeynalov (@MahirZeynalov) March 31, 2016

The altercation with journalists is merely a physical manifestation of what’s been happening to Turkey’s free press since Erdogan was elected president in 2014 (after more than a decade as prime minister). Since then, newsrooms deemed critical by the president have been attacked, journalists arrested and charged with espionage, an opposition newspaper has been seized, and foreign reporters deported and harassed for their coverage. Indeed, Freedom House, the pro-democracy advocacy group, says the press in the country is “not free” following a five-year decline in press freedom. Reporters Without Borders, the media-watchdog group, ranked Turkey 149 out of 180 countries in its 2015 World Press Freedom Index—an improvement from 154th place in 2014.