In light of the recent coup attempt in Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government has officially enacted a state of emergency on Thursday, July 21.
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This comes on the heels of the Turkish government revoking the licenses of 1,500 university deans and 21,000 teachers. About Croatia and Amnesty International also report that the media licenses of 24 radio and television stations have been revoked, while 34 individual journalists have had their press card cancelled respectively.
So what does this mean?
Well, it means that President Erdoğan and his cabinet now have more power to fight the "threat to democracy." Although it sounds good, this means that Erdoğan is able to enforce curfews, restrict or ban any type of meet ups and crack down on independent journalists even more. Given that free speech was already being limited this isn't helping.
Numerous organizations have also been quick to say that this state of emergency is not helping democracy, but is instead hurting democracy. In trying to get rid of the "threats to democracy," Erdoğan's government is doing the opposite.
Detention and repression
Even before issuing the state of emergency, the Turkish government was already cracking down on the "threats to democracy," but with questions of legality. Now that this state of emergency is in place, it only takes a simple yes or no vote by Turkish parliament to approve or reject draft decrees presented by President Erdoğan.
Such decrees have already see the maximum detention of certain suspects go from a mere 4 days to a whole month (30 days).
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Basak Cali states that, "moments such as now as especially crucial for intellectuals to raise their voice," being that neither professors nor their unions dared speak out in fear of the repercussions that would befall them.
This fear is not only limited to government civil servants, though. The Kurdish minority in Southeast Turkey also fear government arrests, due to the constant conflict between Turkish military and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) who are seen as a terrorist organization by many, including the United States, NATO, and European Union to name a few.
Kurdish nationals fear that they will be the next targets after the purging of anti-government dissidents is over with. The problem, though, is that it's not uncommon for Kurds to be arrested and detained without reason.
With these sweeping crackdowns also comes the fear that Erdoğan is trying to use the failed coup as a front to get rid of his opponents. While this statement cannot be verified for sure, it can be seen as plausible due to President Erdoğan blaming Fethullah Gulen, a U.S. based Muslim Cleric, of being at the root of the attempted coup.
