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Turkey's Erdogan Continues Crackdown on Media with Detention of Cumhuriyet Newspaper Staff

posted by martyb on Tuesday November 01 2016, @04:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the things-are-heating-up dept.

takyon writes:

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is moving to silence the remaining few independent media outlets in Turkey:

In the three and half months since a failed military coup, Turkey has sacked or suspended more than 110,000 people, launched a military incursion into Syria, and repeatedly threatened to do the same in Iraq. [...] In the latest purge, police on Monday detained the editor and senior staff of the Cumhuriyet newspaper - one of few outlets still critical of Erdogan - over its alleged support for the July putsch. A senior EU politician described it as crossing a red line against freedom of expression, while the U.S. State Department expressed deep concern.

Erdogan is riding a wave of patriotism as the ruling AK Party he founded seeks constitutional change to move Turkey to a fully presidential system which would give him greater executive powers. "What's happening domestically and in terms of Turkey's foreign policy are a political tactic to keep solid the alliance between the base of the AKP and the nationalists," said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and analyst at Carnegie Europe. "This alliance is keen on harsh policies on the Kurdish issue, looks to be in favor of reinstating the death penalty, and we can't really say they regard the preservation of freedom of speech and of the media very highly," he told Reuters.

There is no sign of any easing in Turkish policy at home or abroad, given the need to ensure nationalist support for the constitutional changes that Erdogan and the ruling party want to result from a referendum, which AKP officials have said could be held next spring. The nationalist MHP opposition party, many of its fervently patriotic members supportive of Erdogan's stance since the coup, has indicated it could back the AKP in parliament as it seeks support for the referendum on the presidential system.

Also at CNN, NPR, NYT, BBC, DW, RT, and The Guardian.

Turkey has just put in an order for more "too big to fail" F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, and is heavily involved in the fight against ISIS in Syria. The U.S. State Department recently issued a travel warning for Turkey and is evacuating the civilian families of Istanbul consulate employees, after a "credible" ISIS threat to kill Americans in the country. Update: U.S. issues travel advisory for India

Meanwhile, Moroccans are protesting the death of a fish vendor, reminiscent of the Tunisian uprisings and resultant "Arab Spring" in 2010.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @07:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @07:29PM (#421364)

    In the Moroccan fish vendor case: The police confiscated the fish (which were fished out of season) and had them put into a dump truck. The fish vendor jumped into the dump truck to recover his fish, but was crushed to death.

    In the Tunisian case: A fruit seller, who had been repeatedly harassed by police, borrowed money to buy fruit to sell in a market. The police demanded a bribe to let him sell, but he did not have the money to spare. The police then beat him, knocked over his cart of fruit, and confiscated his scales. The fruit seller then went to a government office to ask for his scales back and record a complaint, but was ignored. The fruit seller later returned to the government office and burned himself to death using gasoline.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @07:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @07:45PM (#421370)

    Its a lovely world we live in. The US is approaching this type of scenario pretty quickly, currently most of these shitty moves are performed by contractors and not the police themselves...