Stand Up to Turkey's Crackdowns
Emanuele Ottolenghi
February 14, 2014
Turkey’s democracy is sinking. To fend off a corruption scandal, the government has launched an assault on the independence of the judiciary and police, freedom of the press, the right of citizens to demonstrate peacefully, and the ability of the Central Bank to act autonomously. U.S. officials have repeatedly visited Ankara in recent weeks to convey concerns about trade with Iran, but officials deem the ongoing turmoil to be a purely domestic matter. The EU and NATO have also recused themselves. When Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Brussels last month, he was grilled by members of the European Parliament, but the visit was neither cancelled nor postponed.
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