I am reading The Turks Today by Andrew Mango (he’s now retired but was formerly the BBC’s Head of South European and French Language Services). He says that “the claim that Turkey is a country where human rights are routinely violated, a claim often made by Turkey’s ethnic adversaries, and sometimes used as an excuse made by opponents of Turkey’s accession to the EU, is unjustified”. Moreover:
the fact remains that voting has been free in Turkish election ever since 1950, that elections change governments, that votes count and politicians are therefore responsive to the electorate, that the constitutional and legal framework has by and large been brought into line with EU standards, that the judiciary, although usually slow, is shielded from direct pressure, that the media enjoy a wide latitude to criticize all and sundry, and that citizens can obtain redress against administrative abuses, albeit sometimes with the help of personal contacts. Turkey is an open country, and faults within its system of government are not difficult to detect and publicize.
Tags: andrew mango, turkey