Many dozens of journalists have lost their jobs
Erdoğan is zeroing in on the journalists now.
One journalist, who was on vacation, had his home raided in the early morning by the police. Others were called in to their bosses’ offices last week and fired, with little explanation. Dozens of reporters have had their press credentials revoked.
A pro-government newspaper, meanwhile, published a list of names and photographs of journalists suspected of treachery.
The witch-hunt environment that has enveloped Turkey in the wake of a failed military coup extended to the media on Monday, as the government issued warrants for the detention of dozens of journalists.
Erdoğan never has liked to see journalists just doing journalism, without any helpful guidance from him.
Many dozens of journalists have lost their jobs during his tenure. Others have been arrested over their coverage of national security issues. Still others have been charged with insulting the president, a crime in Turkey.
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Among the journalists on the list to be detained on Monday was Nazli Ilicak, a prominent television commentator who was fired several years ago from Sabah, a pro-government newspaper, after criticizing the government during a corruption scandal.
Oh well, governments are always perfect, so there’s no need to have journalists who criticize them.
As the government has detained journalists, it has also begun censoring the internet, blocking access to more than 20 websites, including the news sites Gazetport, Haberdar and Medyascope.
The Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council also canceled broadcasting licenses for 24 television and radio stations with suspected ties to Mr. Gulen.
The Turkish government has not spared foreign journalists in its attacks, verbal or otherwise, on the media.
Officials have singled out news outlets such as the BBC and The New York Times for what they called “pro-coup coverage,” saying the outlets’ focus has been more on Mr. Erdogan’s sweeping purge rather than on the assault on Turkey’s democracy from the coup itself.
The coup was over in hours. The purge is going on and on and on…
These developments must scare the bejeezus out of the Eastern Europeans, they haven’t forgotten 500 years of Turkish menace. The Greeks will now share a common border with a Near Eastern Islamo-fascist regime with a foothold in Europe.
I wonder how Turkey’s application for membership of the EU is progressing and how long will the refugee ‘agreement’ last? We can delete Turkey from the vanishingly small list of secular/democratic majority Muslim countries, which leaves only Indonesia. Perhaps the next wave of refugees from Anatolia will be Turks not Syrians.
My guess is that not much will be said, but that Turkey will not be joining the EU at least while Erdogan or anyone following his policies is in charge. I mean, this behaviour is the antithesis of everything the EU would like to think it stands for.
Turkish membership of the EU has always been a fantasy and part of the dream to recreate the northern half of the Roman Empire. I could never understand how Western Europeans assumed that the Eastern Europeans would have agreed to the membership of a majority Muslim nation, they spent 1,000 years on the front line against Islam and they have long memories.
Purges are a long practised Ottoman tradition. Sultans had such interesting customs as murdering all their very numerous brothers when they ascended to the throne and one even ‘purged’ his harem by drowning all his wives and replacing them with newly captured slave women.
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Gosh. How fortunate we in the enlightened West have no history of such barbaric behaviour.
(I’ll assume I don’t even need the sarcasm tag)
‘Tu quoque’, really? I reel before your devastating riposte. Of course I forgot about Henry VIII and Richard III.The Ottomans were exemplars of upward social mobility since every Sultan was the son of a slave.
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Hahaha. Mate, you forgot more than a couple of medieval kings. Roman emperors were bumping off their families centuries before Mohammed was a twinkle in his daddy’s eye. Leaving aside ancient history — which you obviously have some difficulty doing — perhaps the most infamous purge in recent history has passed into lexicon as the Night of the Long Knives. Do you know what that refers to? Spoiler: nothing to do with your bigoted pet hate of the evil Mooslims.
So have loads of monarchies, dictators and the like.