Crackdown continues
\nDNA
\nISTANBUL
\nTurkey\u2019s two-year state of emergency came to an end at midnight on Wednesday, but as trials of dissidents and journalists continue human rights campaigners have said Ankara must do more to reverse a \u201csuffocating\u201d crackdown on free speech.
\nCritics say the state of emergency, in place since a failed coup attempt in July 2016 that killed 250 people and wounded 1,400, has been used to detain opponents of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, and his government for lengthy periods without trial and to intimidate dissidents and prosecute media outlets.
\nMore than 120,000 people in the police, military, academia, media and civil service have been detained or dismissed from their jobs over their alleged links to Fethullah G\u00fclen, an exiled preacher based in the US whose supporters Ankara blames for the coup.
\n\u201cOver the last two years, Turkey has been radically transformed with emergency measures used to consolidate draconian powers, silence critical voices and strip away basic rights,\u201d said Fotis Filippou, Amnesty International\u2019s deputy director for Europe.
\n\u201cThe lifting of the state of emergency alone will not reverse this crackdown. What is needed is systematic action to restore respect for human rights, allow civil society to flourish again and lift the suffocating climate of fear that has engulfed the country.\u201d
\nTurkey\u2019s government has said it will not seek a renewal of the state of emergency, allowing it to lapse two years after it was imposed and days after Erdo\u011fan was sworn in as president for a fresh five-year term with extraordinary new powers narrowly approved in a referendum last year.
\nCritics say the use of the emergency powers went beyond G\u00fclenists linked to the coup. About a quarter of Turkey\u2019s judges have either been dismissed or detained, a vast realignment of the judiciary that has prompted outrage and concerns that it is no longer independent.
\nThousands have been tried, with many sentenced to life, for involvement in the coup and 100 people have been extradited to Turkey at the behest of the country\u2019s intelligence service, the M\u0130T.<\/p>\n
The crackdown has also increased tensions with western allies such as the EU and the US. On Wednesday a court in the city of \u0130zmir ruled for the continued detention of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor accused of having G\u00fclenist links, in a move that could prompt congressional sanction and that was described by an official at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom as a \u201cmockery of justice\u201d.
\nErdo\u011fan\u2019s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party has tabled a controversial anti-terrorism bill that will retain some of the states of emergency measures. One provision allows local governors to impose curfews or make some areas off-limits to the public, making it easier to ban demonstrations.
\nThe government also appears determined to continue its prosecutions of journalists and opponents. \u201cBecause now in the new system all state power is held by President Erdo\u011fan, there is no need for emergency law,\u201d said Pelin \u00dcnker, an economy correspondent at Cumhuriyet.
\nWho is being sued because of her and a colleague\u2019s reporting on the former prime minister Binali Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m\u2019s sons\u2019 stake in offshore shipping companies, revealed in the Paradise Papers.<\/p>\n
Turkey is the world\u2019s biggest jailer of journalists, ahead of China and Egypt, with more than 120 imprisoned since the coup attempt. Cumhuriyet journalists have been prosecuted in numerous court cases, with some, including the current editor-in-chief, appealing against convictions of up to seven-and-a-half years in jail.<\/p>\n
Erdo\u011fan\u2019s son-in-law and finance minister, Berat Albayrak, is also suing the journalists because of their reporting on offshore investments listed in the Paradise Papers, a move that the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders condemned as threatening the survival of independent media outlets reporting on corruption.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndependent media outlets are fewer now than the fingers on one hand,\u201d said \u00dcnker. \u201cJournalism is our job so we have to do it in all conditions, even in the face of such duress and injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the crackdown appeared to have barely slowed even as the end of the state of emergency approached. A day before Erdo\u011fan was sworn in, another 18,600 public servants were dismissed over alleged links to terror groups, and on Tuesday academics who had signed a petition calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Kurdish separatists were sentenced to prison.<\/p>\n
Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, the leader of the largest opposition bloc, the Republican People\u2019s party (CHP), vowed in a party congress to challenge what he described as a \u201cdictatorship\u201d and one-man rule. But on Wednesday the government said it was launching an investigation against K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu for insulting the president, an allegation frequently used to intimidate critics, over a cartoon mocking the Turkish president that was shared on social media.<\/p>\n
The continued prosecutions offer a hint that, even though Erdo\u011fan is secure in his control of the state\u2019s levers of power and authority, there will be little immediate relief for dissidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the state of emergency has served its purpose, both politically and practically,\u201d said Selim Can Sazak, a Turkey expert and adjunct fellow at the Century Foundation. \u201cThe job is almost complete. Hundreds of thousands purged. Some G\u00fclenists, apparently, but many others not. Universities, bureaucracy, media, etc, largely subdued.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crackdown continues DNA ISTANBUL Turkey\u2019s two-year state of emergency came to an end at midnight on Wednesday, but as trials of dissidents and journalists continue human rights campaigners have said Ankara must do more to reverse a \u201csuffocating\u201d crackdown on free speech. Critics say the state of emergency, in place since a failed coup attempt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n