Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday rejected growing criticism that his government was muzzling the press, saying many Western countries had even worse records on media freedom.

Erdogan's speech to parliament followed a report by the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House earlier this month, which downgraded Turkey's status from "partly free" to "not free" and said the country had seen the biggest decline in press freedom in Europe.

"Those who say that there is no press freedom in Turkey should take a look at the headlines of the daily newspapers in Turkey. A significant number of them systematically insult the government," he told parliament.

"When you criticize these immoral headlines, they call you a dictator. But in other countries, they call it democracy," he said.

"Let's see what happens when one of these headlines is published in the countries deemed freer than Turkey. I can't imagine what would happen to the journalists and the newspapers of those countries."

"We will not bow to these monuments of arrogance."

Erdogan cited violations of press freedom in the United States, Israel and Germany, saying Turkey had a better record than any of them.