Hurriyet Daily News on Tuesday conveyed a speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the outlet characterized as “slam[ming] Israel, Germany, the United States and many others” – which the Islamist leader did in the context of “defending Ankara’s press freedom record” from a recent Freedom House report downgrading Ankara to “Not Free” – amid growing criticism of creeping authoritarianism by Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
After criticizing the report for listing Israel as the freest country in the Middle East, Erdoğan complained of “double standards,” noting the firing of journalist Helen Thomas in the United States and stressing that Turkish public broadcaster TRT was taken off air by satellite providers in Germany due to its coverage of the Hamburg riots.
“When they do such things in other countries, they call it democracy. When we do it, they call it pressure,” he said.
The prime minister’s anti-Israel remarks came as other AKP officials were openly declaring that ties between Ankara and Israel were set to be restored after several years in deep freeze, with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying that he hoped Jerusalem would take a “positive attitude” toward reconciliation.
Meanwhile a range of governmental and non-governmental organizations have in recent days sharpened their criticism of both recent and long-standing Turkish policies. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Turkey owes Cyprus over 90 million Euros to compensate for its military actions on the island in 1974 (Davutoglu has already announced that Ankara will ignore the order).
Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth on Tuesday took to Foreign Policy to worry that under Erdogan “Turkey is embarking on a dangerous experiment of undermining basic rights and the rule of law as constraints on majoritarian rule.”
Erdogan’s response to the corruption investigation shows both the extent of his power and his disregard for the basic safeguards of a democratic society…Erdogan seems to be dangerously conflating his own political future with his country’s best interest. For much of the past decade, the two coincided, but as street protests and official corruption plague him, Erdogan’s growing autocracy has replaced the military as the greatest threat to Turkey’s prospects as a rights-respecting democracy.
[Photo: Mektebi Sultani / YouTube]