Turkey’s President Erdogan is using executive powers, including arbitrary decrees to imprison politicians, declare anybody he disagrees with as terrorists, and shut down political parties.
He is taking decisions in the middle of the night on issues in which he has no authority. In a country where at least 400 women were killed in the past year, he unilaterally withdrew from the Istanbul Agreement which contains important elements for the prevention of violence against women. He has also, in the middle of the night, sacked the governor of the central bank and is bringing land into public ownership only to hand it over to developers within his own party.
Most recently at his party conference on 24 March, he called on citizens to sell their gold and foreign currency. And, as if this wasn’t enough he called for people to have more children, saying “The age of marriage has almost reached 30. Some families don’t have more than 1 or 2 children”.
Erdogan constantly tries to enforce his own will, with no regard for any domestic or international law. Meanwhile western countries that claim to be progressive democracies, not least the UK, stand idly by.
Western countries that support Erdogan’s AKP Government to further their own economic interests must also be called to account, because they too are responsible for the authoritarianism and oppression that the people of Turkey continue to face.
