"Misperceptions and series of mistakes
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
What Turkey has been doing as of late is not accidentally shooting itself in the foot, but blowing it away with a machine gun. Incidents that immediately come to mind are the public beating of female demonstrators by police on March 6, legal articles that limit freedom of speech in the new Turkish Penal Code that went into effect on June 1, a declaration attached to the customs union protocol on July 29, a polemic about who should invite the newly elected pope, an attempt to close down the Education Personnel Labor Union, the postponement of a conference on Ottoman Armenians, violent incidents in Trabzon, Rize and Şemdinli, the disgraceful national team football match against Switzerland, public police beating of demonstrating teachers in Ankara, and now the trials of novelist Orhan Pamuk and Yüzüncü Yıl University Rector Yücel Aşkın. The pouncing of foreign observers by street protestors after the Pamuk trial was just the icing on the cake. "
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