Cyprus-Forum.com

[Tim Drayton]

Cumhuriyet's Executive Board Chair, Akın Atalay, has also been remanded in custody (what is 'formal arrest', by the way) and joins his other nine colleagues:

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/engl ... stody.html

[B25]

[Tim Drayton]

Lawyers in Istanbul have held a protest march over what they say is the 'ungrounded and unlawful' remanding of the ten journalists.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/engl ... ember.html

[Tim Drayton]

Turkey’s Free Press Withers Under Erdogan’s Crackdown

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/world ... .html?_r=0

It’s a brutal process that’s been going on for the past five years or so, but it’s still nice to see the world finally waking up a bit.

[repulsewarrior]

...accordingly, this Press Freedom, advanced, it is returning to its state before there was an Erdogan.

Affectively, (and effectively,) the "New Turkey", is an effort to move, more, backwards.

[Tim Drayton]

...accordingly, this Press Freedom, advanced, it is returning to its state before there was an Erdogan.

Affectively, (and effectively,) the "New Turkey", is an effort to move, more, backwards.

I don't really agree with that, I am afraid. I lived in Turkey in the 1990's (i.e. before Erdoğan) and there was far more pluralism, freedom of speech and press freedom then than now. It is much worse now.

[Zenon33]

...accordingly, this Press Freedom, advanced, it is returning to its state before there was an Erdogan.

Affectively, (and effectively,) the "New Turkey", is an effort to move, more, backwards.

I don't really agree with that, I am afraid. I lived in Turkey in the 1990's (i.e. before Erdoğan) and there was far more pluralism, freedom of speech and press freedom then than now. It is much worse now.

Bananism rules Tu...y now.

[Tim Drayton]

Bananism rules Tu...y now.

Yes. Erdoğan is not, has never been and never will be some kind of angel who is/was trying to better the lot of his people. He is, has been and will be a mad, corrupt, dangerous tyrrant. What is happening now is what was planned for all along, except Erdoğan has stolen Fethullah Gülen's thunder and sidelined him, making himself sole dictator. It is true that Turkey saw a brief period in which pluralism and press freedom rose to unprecedented levels after the AKP first came to power in 2002. This was purely tactical as, until they could destroy the power of the military which at one time considered itself to be the guardian of the secular order, they needed the electoral support of liberals who wanted Turkey to move in the direction of full EU membership and had to pretend to be enthuisastically following the EU accession process, bringing with it a whole host of reforms including those guaranteeing press freedom. (I made plenty of posts here at the time explaining why I thought this was empty posturing and could never be the true goal of political Islam).

For those who still do not get it, here are a couple of quotes from one of the astutest political commentators in the secular camp in Turkey, Aydın Engin, from his recent columns in the very Cumhuriyet newspaper, that bastion of secularism that Erdoğan is now trying to silence, about where Turkey is now moving (taken from the paper's English-language section):

It is as clear as day that the AKP government with Tayyip Erdoğan at the helm is taking Turkey in an entirely (not slightly, but entirely) different direction. Turkey is turning its face away from the EU and towards the Gulf. I mean the Gulf where the Emirate of Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hold sway.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... chulz.html

This deprecating allusion reflects Erdoğan’s subconscious (or conscious?) hatred for democratic institutions like parliament. For Erdoğan, parliament is an impediment that stops those in power from doing just as they please.
Some of that hatred is also reserved for the ‘separation of powers’ that underpins the rule of law in contemporary democracies. That is another impediment. The “Turkish-style presidential system” of which the AKP crew never tire of speaking does not only aim to emasculate and obliterate parliament. It also plans to circumvent the judiciary, the key institution under the separation of powers.
Political Islam, you see, completely dislikes and totally rejects ‘infidel’ institutions such as a president without powers and responsibilities representing the state, a government heading the executive branch, a parliament vested with legislative power and a judiciary that supervises them all within the framework of the universal rules of law.
Political Islam accepts and defends by way of principle that heavenly commands create the law and that rule by persons vested with absolute power equipped with titles like chief, emir, sultan, sovereign is an edict of Islam.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/engl ... eople.html

It still remains beyond my comprehension why the West considers such developments to be in its interest, and, make no mistake, Erdoğan would not have got where he is today without the West's support (in the case of the UK, seemingly continued total support as I still have not heard as much as a single 'tut, tut' from the British Foreign Office over the latest outrages such as summarily rounding up and remanding in custody the key members of parliament of the HDP party for clearly political motives).

[Get Real!]

Erdo, don't stop until there are 80 million Turks behind bars because that's where they all belong. Thanks.

The EU should fund more prisons to be built in Turkey.

[MR-from-NG]

Erdo, don't stop until there are 80 million Turks behind bars because that's where they all belong. Thanks.

The EU should fund more prisons to be built in Turkey.