Human rights in Turkey are still a disaster
Published by Avi Green on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 at 6:02 AM.
You would think that in Turkey, things are civilized enough for a country of their sort, right? Not so according to this item by Steven Plaut on FPM, which talks about Tayyip Erdogan's sick assault on Israel at the UN:
I think the time has come to stop paying money to Turkey's tourism, though I got a feeling that, with dictatorships making a comeback, that may be moot already. Turkey's future does not look bright.
Brutal force has been used against Kurdish separatists and other political groups. Indeed, the operations of the Turkish military against the Kurds make Israel's recent incursion into the Gaza Strip (in Operation "Cast Lead") look like a May Day picnic. Until 2003, it was forbidden to speak Kurdish on the radio or television; the Kurdish alphabet still cannot be used. The state of human rights in Turkey, according to numerous human rights NGOs, continues to be atrocious. Women in Turkey are mistreated; until very recently women students applying to universities had to pass a virginity test. The Turkish military police routinely kill civilians. Journalists have been assassinated.One such reporter was an Armenian named Hrant Dink. If you're one of those who didn't know about this before, now you do - how a country once thought to be a decent tourist attraction is really a nightmare behind the scenes.
I think the time has come to stop paying money to Turkey's tourism, though I got a feeling that, with dictatorships making a comeback, that may be moot already. Turkey's future does not look bright.
