Turkey’s dispiriting elections
Erdogan offers an uncertain democratic future for Turkey; Syria Contact Group avoids divisions over Assad’s fate; Iranian and Russian support pivotal in Syrian military campaign to retake Aleppo.
Turkey "shameful" attacks on media freedom
The trends in Turkish politics leading up to the Nov. 1 Grand National Assembly parliamentary elections have dimmed prospects for a shift away from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies.
Mustafa Akyol writes how “Turkey's already shameful state of media freedom suffered another blow this week — and more might be coming. As a result, it is getting increasingly difficult to define Erdogan’s New Turkey as a democracy, if that term has any meaning other than frequent elections.”
Akyol recounts how in the days leading up to the election, “staunchly pro-government figures” fired the editors-in-chief of Bugun and Millet dailies, and Kanalturk and Bugun TV channels, while Koza Ipek Holding, which owns Ipek Media, was placed under some form of a government trusteeship.
