August 30, 201610 yr Scary stuff going on in Turkey right now... Detention orders issued for 35 media workers, journalists in Turkey | World news | News | About Croatia An Istanbul prosecutor issued detention orders for 35 media workers, including journalists, the Dogan news agency reported Tuesday, saying that the accused have links to the movement of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. The government blames the US-based, Turkish born Gulen of orchestrating the July 15 coup attempt, charges he denies. Gulen was a one-time ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but the two fell out in recent years. A massive crackdown in Turkey since the coup has seen some 80,000 government employees suspended. More than 40,000 people have been detained, while about 20,000 have been formally arraigned and arrested. Critics say the suspensions and detentions have turned into a dragnet catching up people who were not part of the coup attempt. The pro-Kurdish Ozgur Gun news channel, meanwhile, said it was taken off the air in Turkey, though it continues to operate in the country and broadcasts online. There was no official notice from Turkey's broadcasting authority about the channel, which is based in Diyarbakir, a mostly-Kurdish city in south-eastern Turkey, but the station says it was removed from the Turksat satellite broadcasting system.
November 4, 20169 yr This whole thing may be coming to a head tonight. Arrest warrants issued for all MPs from the third largest political party in Turkey under the auspices of failure to cooperate with their terrorism investigation. It is a pro-Kurdish party. Rumors of troop buildups on the border with Iraq.
November 4, 20169 yr Are we able to label Erdogan a dictator rather than president at this point? To my mind, no question. This is a NATO member with a government that's gone completely non-democratic at this point. He got himself elected enough times that he's just consolidating power to the point that the elections will just be a sham. It's the Putin blueprint.
November 4, 20169 yr To my mind, no question. This is a NATO member with a government that's gone completely non-democratic at this point. He got himself elected enough times that he's just consolidating power to the point that the elections will just be a sham. It's the Putin blueprint. This was the crux of every argument I ever had with people about the former role of the Turkish Military in their political process. The fact that the military was more of a guarantor of democracy than the democracy itself was hard for many idealistic college students to grasp.
November 4, 20169 yr This was the crux of every argument I ever had with people about the former role of the Turkish Military in their political process. The fact that the military was more of a guarantor of democracy than the democracy itself was hard for many idealistic college students to grasp. You'd think folks could wrap their heads around the inherent dangers of majoritarianism and why our own constitution guards against using that as a pure form of governance. A democratically elected government that is unconstrained by the rule of law won't be a democratically elected government for very long.
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