{"id":109350,"date":"2014-12-20T11:50:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T09:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=109350"},"modified":"2023-03-16T18:31:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T15:31:19","slug":"turkeys-descent-into-paranoia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2014\/12\/20\/turkeys-descent-into-paranoia\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s Descent Into Paranoia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The New York Times &#8211; The Opinion Pages | Editorial &#8211; DEC. 19, 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DEMIRTAS-BAYAR.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DEMIRTAS-BAYAR.jpg\" alt=\"DEMIRTAS BAYAR\" class=\"wp-image-109353\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">DEMIRTAS BAYAR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turkey\u2019s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says mass arrests on Dec. 14 of journalists, screenwriters and television producers were necessary to eliminate agents of a \u201cparallel state\u201d bent on seizing power. But Mr. Erdogan\u2019s efforts to stifle criticism and dissent show an authoritarian leader living in a parallel universe, one where being a democracy, a NATO ally and a candidate for membership in the European Union are somehow compatible with upending the rule of law and stifling freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The arrests closely follow wild accusations that the acclaimed Turkish novelists Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak are puppets of a mysterious \u201cinternational literature lobby\u201d dedicated to discrediting Mr. Erdogan\u2019s Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P. The authors have been subjected to a social-media smear campaign labeling them as \u201cprojects\u201d used by the West to slander Mr. Erdogan and his party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last February, Mr. Erdogan\u2019s government pushed through new laws severely restricting Internet freedom and curbing the independence of Turkey\u2019s judiciary in response to a corruption scandal that rocked the government last December. The timing of the mass arrests coincides with the one-year anniversary of the scandal, and appears designed to prevent last year\u2019s revelations from being revisited in public. Most of the arrested journalists work for the Samanyolu Broadcasting Group and the newspaper Zaman, both affiliated with Fethullah Gulen, a political rival of Mr. Erdogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In September, Mr. Erdogan\u2019s government announced a fresh strategy for Turkey\u2019s long-thwarted efforts to join the European Union. But after the European Union criticized the recent mass arrests as \u201cincompatible with the freedom of media, which is a core principle of democracy,\u201d Mr. Erdogan reacted by telling the E.U. to mind its own business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr. Erdogan\u2019s paranoid bullying is deeply worrisome. His government\u2019s sweeping efforts to stifle freedom of expression, slander novelists and neutralize the judiciary are destroying Turkey\u2019s democracy. Next year, Turkey will assume the presidency of the Group of 20. Mr. Erdogan\u2019s government hopes to use this as a platform to raise Turkey\u2019s international standing. His assault on democratic rights is achieving just the opposite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times &#8211; The Opinion Pages | Editorial &#8211; DEC. 19, 2014 Turkey\u2019s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says mass arrests on Dec. 14 of journalists, screenwriters and television producers were necessary to eliminate agents of a \u201cparallel state\u201d bent on seizing power. But Mr. Erdogan\u2019s efforts to stifle criticism and dissent show an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":666920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}