One of many planned constitutional changes in Turkey, all designed to increase President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s already virtually unchecked power, the effort to strip members of parliament of their legal immunity sparked an ugly brawl in parliament, with several MPs reportedly injured.
As with most nations with an elected parliament, Turkish law grants lawmakers considerable immunity from prosecution. This is meant to prevent the ruling government from using its power to persecute elected MPs they don’t get along with.
As you might imagine in Turkey, where Erdogan is nationalizing the press and arresting journalists and professors as “terrorists” for publicly criticizing him, the effort to remove immunity is aimed squarely at political enemies from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The HDP is seen as a pro-minority party, and virtually all of their MPs are from the ethnic Kurdish southeast, where the government is carrying out a highly criticized military campaign. Erdogan has condemned the HDP as “terrorists,” and has openly promised to send Turkey’s military after members of parliament associated with that party as soon as immunity is stripped, presenting that as part of the ongoing war against the Kurds.
Sultan Erdogan is a far greater threat to peace than Assad.
Amen.
And that’s our great ally. Turkey has been an outgoing conduit for ISIS oil and an incoming conduit for ISIS recruits. Sunni Turkey is more interested in fighting the Shiites (Kurds, Assad and Iran) then fighting ISIS. The same can be said for most of our Middle Eastern “allies”. Time to develop energy Independence, secure our borders, pull out and let them kill each other….Luke they’ve been doing since the death of Muhammad.
It seems to me like Erdogan is only concerned with his own power and time in office. Everything he does seems to underscore a certain ruthless power hunger. He’ll do anything to stay in power and silence any challenge to that power. No policy is off the table these days.
That the EU is even considering Turkey for membership shows that they’ve lost their damn minds.