Europe Courting Godfather Erdogan

by Judith Bergman • March 31, 2016 at 5:00 am

Erdogan has boasted that he is proud of boldly blackmailing EU leaders into paying him protection money.
Erdogan's threats were almost criminally sinister: "... the EU will be confronted with more than a dead boy on the shores of Turkey. There will be 10,000 or 15,000. How will you deal with that?"
According to the agreement, 80 million Turkish citizens will have visa-free access to the European Union.
The nightmare scenario for a desperate EU is that no matter how much it bows to extortionist demands from Turkey, the migrant crisis will continue to grow. Even if Turkey closes down all migrant routes from Turkey into Europe, refugees could take new routes through North Africa or the Caucasus.
Meanwhile, 800,000 migrants are currently on Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean, according to French Defense Minister Jean-Yves le Drian.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) has boasted that he is proud of blackmailing EU leaders, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (right), into paying him protection money.

"We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses ... So how will you deal with refugees if you don't get a deal? Kill the refugees?" This was the question Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in true mafia style, asked European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on November 16, 2015 in a closed meeting in Antalya, Turkey, where the three met after the G20 summit.

While Tusk and Juncker have both declined to comment on whether the meeting took place, Erdogan has since then boasted that he is proud of the leaked minutes of the meeting, where he boldly blackmails EU leaders into paying him protection money.

Erdogan's threats were almost criminally sinister: "... the EU will be confronted with more than a dead boy on the shores of Turkey. There will be 10,000 or 15,000. How will you deal with that?"

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Journalism in Turkey: Newsroom vs. Courtroom

by Burak Bekdil • March 31, 2016 at 4:00 am

According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015; 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on charges of "terrorism." There are also many journalists among the 1,845 Turks who have been investigated or prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he was elected in August 2014.
After the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria, President Erdogan himself filed a criminal complaint against Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, and the Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul.
At a March 25 hearing, the Istanbul court ruled for the whole trial to be held in secret.
"We came here today to defend journalism...We said we would defend the people's right to access information. We defended that and we were arrested." -- Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet.
The trial clearly exhibits how Erdogan's authoritarian rule diverges from Western democratic culture.

Can Dundar (right), editor-in-chief of Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Erdem Gul (left), Cumhuriyet's Ankara bureau chief, were arrested after the paper published evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria. They remained behind bars for over 90 days, until Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled that their detention violated their rights.

"Turkey is where many journalists may have to spend more time at their attorneys' offices or in courtrooms than in the newsrooms, where they should be," a Western diplomat joked bitterly. "Don't quote me on that. I don't want to be declared persona non grata," he added with a smile.

He was right. According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015; 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on charges of "terrorism."

Needless to say, the unfortunate journalists are invariably known to be critical of Erdogan. There are also many journalists among the 1,845 Turks who have been investigated or prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he was elected in August 2014.

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