Awful, eh? I mean, in particular, the aftermath. It seems we are watching the consolidation of a potentially totalitarian state.
I don’t know enough about Turkey to know if that statement is really “true”, but given how often I have written about Turkey’s elections and constitutional reforms in the past, I thought there should at least be a space here to discuss what’s happening…
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Erdogan’s declaration of a 3-month state of emergency is straight out of the dictator’s playbook. It seems there is now no doubt as to his ambitions.
Well, Hollande has also declared (and prorrogated) the state of emergency.
Guardian today seems to leave no doubt that Turkey and France are rather different: “In the latest developments on Tuesday, the government fired more than 15,000 employees at the education ministry, sacked 257 officials at the prime minister’s office and 492 clerics at the directorate for religious affairs. Additionally, more than 1,500 university deans were asked to resign.
It followed the firing of nearly 8,800 policemen, and the arrests of 6,000 soldiers, 2,700 judges and prosecutors, dozens of governors, and more than 100 generals – or just under one-third of the general corps. Some 20 news websites critical of the government have also been blocked.”
Clearly, not all states of emergency are created equal.