The Sick Man Of Europe

 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has become very authoritarian in recent years ...

Türkiye Has Been Branded
'The Sick Man Of Europe' Before

.... accused philanthropist Osman Kavala of being an agent of the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros, although why Soros would need agents in Türkiye has never been explained by the government prosecutors.

In court in April 2022, he was sentenced to life in prison. He had already been held in prison for four years without being tried, before the April 2022 conviction .... many countries worldwide objected to his arrest, trial and conviction ... to no avail as the Turkish courts are simply rubber stamps for Erdogan's political desires.

He was found guilty of trumped up charges (orchestrating and financing), originally related to the nationwide protests in 2013 (for which he was acquitted), but then later to the failed coup attempt of 2016. The latter charge is being used by Erdogan's government to silence all opposition. Even the European Court of Human Rights, has said there was insufficient evidence he committed an offence, and that his arrest was an attempt to "silence him and dissuade other human rights defenders".

Mr Kavala told the media in a written statement, that the judiciary was "being used as a tool for retribution in line with the priorities of the government" .... in other words that the law is whatever Erdogan's ministers now say it is. "After the failed coup in 2016, being arrested without tangible evidence and being expelled from jobs in the public sector became standard practice," he wrote. "The way Turkey is being governed at the moment does not look like a real democracy."

In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights issued a binding ruling calling for Mr Kavala's release, which was totally ignored by the autocratic Erdogan's government. "The European Court of Human Rights gave a decision," he said. "They want to convict Turkey regarding this Soros leftover. Do you release bandits, killers or terrorists in your country?"

A Human Rights Watch spokesperson in Istanbul said "Tens of thousands have been put in detention on bogus terrorism charges. Turkey operates by locking up its critics." 

Ignoring those many, many, thousands who have lost their jobs (officially around 125,000 people were dismissed by decree in 2016), Turkey has handed out at least 2,532 life terms following failed 2016 coup, with over 4,000 jailed from pro-Kurdish HDP party, while at least 3,625imprisoned for insulting the president .... oh, and at least 67 journalists have been jailed.

Gunal Kursun, a lawyer and human rights campaigner who was jailed on charges of aiding a terrorist organisation, said that he was he was arbitrarily removed from his post as an assistant professor of criminal law in 2016, and he feared what Turkey is heading towards "I believe that if this government carries on, Turkey will be like Russia," he said. "In some sense it has already happened. Day by day it is getting harder. Whenever you say something about human rights violations, you can be criminalised easily by the government."  

In 2019, Canan Kaftancioglu, who heads the secular Republican People's Party's (CHP) Istanbul branch, was sentenced to nine years, eight months and 20 days in prison on charges related to the 2013 anti-government protests, and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). She received the criminal conviction for 'insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish state'.

After an appeal, the prison term was reduced to just under five years, but she probably now faces a suspended prison sentence, after tens of thousands of people rallied in Turkey's largest city of Istanbul in support of her. The politicised Turkish judges should be aware that the political wind may change direction one day, and should want to safeguard their futures by not bowing so easily to Erdogan's wishes.

Why we bother pretending that Erdogan's government is in the least ways 'European,' and not in fact an autocratic middle eastern regime, much like Iran or Egypt in fact, is beyond me ... but could it be his threat to unleash three million Syrian Muslim refugees on the real Europe?