Turkey’s Erdogan Goes Full-Dictator: Arrests Dutch Journalist For Critical Tweet
By Tyler Durden
One month ago, we cited Turkey’s president Tayyip Recep Erdogan who said that “it is not only the person who pulls the trigger, but those who made that possible who should be defined as terrorists, regardless of their title,” when was urging parliament to include journalists, politicians, academics, and activists under the country’s anti-extremism laws.
Erdogan’s comments came a day after the latest in a string of suicide bombings ripped through Ankara, killing 34 and wounding more than 100 in Kizilay. Since then, Turkey has arrested nearly 50 people with “suspected ties” to the PKK against which Erdogan is waging a highly personal crusade.
However, Turkey’s President didn’t think parliament was moving fast enough on his “request” to expand the definition of “terrorist” because in a speech on Wednesday, he effectively instructed lawmakers to get moving before also urging parliament to deal with “the issue of immunities.”
True to form, Erdogan didn’t wait on parliament to expand the “terrorist” definition before he went ahead and arrested three academics for “terrorist propaganda” after they made the mistake of publicly asking the government to stop the siege on Cizre and other cities in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.”
Then, when a British citizen who teaches at Bilgi University showed up at the courthouse to support the lawyers, he was also arrested. His crime, in his own words: “I am accused because I had several invitations to Kurdish new year (celebrations on March 21) published by the HDP – the third-largest party in the Turkish parliament – in my bag.”
It has gotten so bad, and Turks are so terrified of their despotic “leader” that two months ago, a Turkish truck driver literally sued his own wife for cursing at Erdogan when he spoke on television. “I warned her,” the man later said.
Understandably, the “developed world” (of which Turkey is supposedly part of) has repeatedly closed its eyes to Erdogan’s unprecedented human rights violations: after all Europe needs Turkey now more than ever to halt the mass flow of Syrian refugees within its borders or else virtually all ruling parties in Europe are threatened with being replaced in any upcoming elections. As such, if the country became a despotic tyranny under Erdogan, oh well: after all Europe has not only turned a blind eye to his dictatorial actions but also paid him billions of dollars to “halt” the flow of refugees… and he knows it.
However, this morning Erdogan may have finally gone too far following the arrest of a Dutch-Turkish journalist, Ebru Umar, who was detained early on Sunday at her home in Turkey for tweets deemed critical of the Turkish president according to her Twitter account.
“Police at the door. No joke,” wrote Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin.
Oké. Politie voor de deur timeline. Geen grap.
— Ebru Umar (@umarebru) April 23, 2016
IK BEN NIET VRIJ. IK MOET MEE NAAR HET ZIEKENHUIS
— Ebru Umar (@umarebru) April 23, 2016
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Source: Turkey’s Erdogan Goes Full-Dictator: Arrests Dutch Journalist For Critical Tweet
