Turkey Is Behaving like an Enemy Now
Turkey, along with the American-Turkish relationship, is going so far off the rails so quickly right now that there’s no chance you’re aware of everything that’s going on unless you track it professionally or get Google Alerts in your inbox.
Where to even begin? We could start, I suppose, with the fact that a Turkish court sentenced a Wall Street Journal reporter to two years in prison in absentia for “promoting a terrorist organization.” Her real crime? Interviewing and quoting members of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). In other words, for doing her job.
The reporter, Ayla Albayrak, is in the United States now, so President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can’t get his grubby mitts on her, but let this be a lesson to all journalists who write about Turkey. You can and will be sentenced to prison .
Related: Turkey jails more journalists than any other nation.
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Whether or not you’re a journalist, Americans can be sentenced to prison just for existing in Turkey. Last year, the government arrested and imprisoned American pastor Andrew Brunson, who has lived there for decades, on bogus terrorism charges.
Whether or not you’re a journalist, Americans can be sentenced to prison just for existing in Turkey. Last year, the government arrested and imprisoned American pastor Andrew Brunson, who has lived there for decades, on bogus terrorism charges
I have reported from police states in the past. I risked deportation for doing so, not imprisonment, even in communist countries. When it comes to the treatment of journalists, the Turkish government is more oppressive even than China’s or Cuba’s. Turkey has in fact jailed more journalists than any other country in the entire world .
Erdogan says they’re all terrorists. Probably none of them are. Being branded a terrorist in Turkey is only faintly more plausible than being fingered a witch in Salem, Massachusetts, 300 years ago.
Needless to say, this is not how a NATO ally is supposed to behave. Taking hostages is an act of war. It’s what Iran does. It’s what North Korea does. It’s what Hezbollah does. It is not what genuine allies like the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Germany do.
Turkey is still in NATO . . .
The only Turkey I don't hate is the one I can eat. One of my friends in Toronto was an Armenian who had a lot of stories about his grandfather and the Armenian Genocide, so it was no surprise to me that Turkey would defend the terrorists on board the Mavi Marmora who were killed and use it as an excuse to damn Israel for its soldiers defending themselves.
The Turks continue to deny the Armenian Genocide-- even though there's no doubt it happened.