Turkey’s ratings on “perceived corruption” have increased sharply, according to a new report published by a global watchdog for government transparency.

The report identifying the most and least corrupt countries in the world was published Wednesday by Transparency International. It uses a scale on which 100 represents the cleanest states and 0 the most corrupt.

The report indicates Turkey’s record had deteriorated the most precipitously this year, falling by five points to 45.

The drop reflects not only the exposing of various incidents of corruption in the Turkish governmental system, but also the rising number (Arabic link) of journalists arrested by the authorities after condemning the regime.

Earlier this year, the government of then-prime minister (now president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan blocked access to Twitter to prevent discussion of a massive corruption scandal embroiling the ruling party. Instead of addressing the scandal in a transparent fashion, Erdogan appointed cronies to the panel investigating government corruption.

On the other side, Egypt and Jordan were described in the report as countries where corruption has decreased during the last year.

Ranked the 94th least corrupt country out of 175 states, Egypt’s integrity score improved by five points in 2014. The organization said that Egypt “achieved one of the highest levels of improvement in its fight against corruption this year.”

According to this ranking, Arab Gulf countries are still the least corrupt states in the Arab world.

[Photo: World Economic Forum / Flickr]