The corruption dragnet, in which the sons of three cabinet ministers were also detained on allegations of bribery, is a threat to Mr. Erdogan, involving as it does the same issue that incited the wave of antigovernment demonstrations that swept the country last summer: the construction business and the public financing of real estate. The police raided the offices of [...] → Read the full article…
Political cartoons as a form of graphic protest still have an effect on the body politics of Turkey. Even those who may not understand Turkish can see the message in a caricature. Cartoons make us not only smile, but promptly locate the undeniable truth in our minds. Erdogan is aware of this power, hence there is a Wikipedia entry in Turkish, ”Cartoons [...] → Read the full article…
Erdogan has decided the best way to maximize his vote in Turkey’s first direct presidential election next year is to polarize the electorate. He wants to force Turks to choose between two options: You’re either with Erdogan, or against him. And if you are against him, you are with the old, wooden-headed, military-backed, secularist system and its decadent offspring. ”Those who [...] → Read the full article…
In his time in power, more than a decade now, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has alienated large portions of the population for his seeming intrusions into private lives. He has told women how many children they should have, has sought to outlaw abortion and adultery and to limit alcohol consumption and once, oddly, went on a public tirade [...] → Read the full article…
Did you know there are legitimate and illegitimate lifestyles? That is what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a Finnish reporter in Helsinki on Nov. 6. After suggesting the reporter was on a special mission to offend him, Erdogan went on to say that during his 16 years in politics, he has “never intervened in personal lifestyle choices.” Erdogan added that whatever the laws say, that [...] → Read the full article…
Four months after protests against the planned redevelopment of an Istanbul park devolved into a violent national uproar against the government, Turkish students are taking to the streets once again to fight an all-too-familiar scheme. Turkish riot police fired on students with tear gas and water cannon as workers broke ground last week on a road that will intersect the [...] → Read the full article…
The Turkish prime minister revealed the iron fist in his velvet glove this summer, but of which is his true character built? All summer long, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been in a very bad mood. The public squares and parks of Istanbul and several other Turkish cities were taken over by protesters he angrily dismissed as “riff-raff”, turning the full [...] → Read the full article…
On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan, a strong advocate for military intervention in the Syrian war, reacted angrily to the United States’ decision to delay a military strike there — a decision analysts said had left Mr. Erdogan more politically vulnerable at home. In Istanbul on Thursday, police officers used tear gas to disperse protesters. Demonstrations have broken out recently across the [...] → Read the full article…
The response of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to this summer’s protest movement in Turkey made clear his worsening authoritarianism. Yet his AKP party was founded on inclusivity and pragmatic compromise. As Turks struggled to grasp the impact of this summer’s protests in Istanbul and other cities across the country, Yeşim Arat, professor of political science at Bogazici University, pointed [...] → Read the full article…
How Prime Minister Erdoğan accidentally fostered a generation of Turkish liberals. On Aug. 5 a court in western Turkey handed down life sentences to a score of retired military officers, including the former chief of the general staff, as well as politicians and media figures, for plotting attacks that would have hurled the country into chaos in preparation for a [...] → Read the full article…