Proposed Legislation Stokes New Crackdown as Emergency Rule Ending in Turkey

Source:Voice of America Date:18Jul2018

Despite the proposed new powers, analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners suggests there remains a way for Erdogan to make a conciliatory gesture.

“One way to keep the binding provisions of state of emergency in the new legislation but signal a more tolerant approach to human rights such as free speech is to release most of the 150 journalists and intellectuals currently locked up, as well as ending the practice of firing academics for pro-PKK (Kurdish insurgents) or Gulenist sympathies,” Yesilada said. Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist organization. The PKK has been waging a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey.