Turkey’s “mildly” Islamist (to borrow the Economist’s curious description) Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has been up to his “mildly” authoritarian tricks again. Claire Berlinski has the details:
How certain am I that the world will not notice this development? Oh, 100 percent. It’s one of those little items, again. No one’s reporting it in English. Compared to Iran’s hanging binge, it’s such a modest outrage against civil liberties that who’s going to bother to get exercised about it? But an outrage against civil liberties it is. Erdoğan has begun pressing charges against bloggers whose writings meet with his displeasure. A 22-year-old college student, Barış Ünver, could face two years in prison for intimating that Erdoğan was “the soul mate” of PKK terrorist Ocalan.
Just another reminder that Turkey should have no place in the EU and that those (Barack Obama, David Cameron and others) who suggest that it does have no understanding of Turkey and very little of the EU.