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YEREVAN, JUNE 20, ARMENPRESS:The Jewish Voice is calling on the International Olympic Committee to take a hard look at the current situation in Turkey, and think deeply about whether that country is the appropriate venue for a world sporting event that is supposed to send a message of freedom and the value of individual human enterprise, reports Armenpress.
Istanbul is one of the primary contenders to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, stimulating Erdogan to try marketing the city as a connecting force between civilizations. Yet despite such hopes, the leader of Turkey is not hesitant to foster an atmosphere at home that reeks with authoritarianism and rapidly creeping tyranny.
"We are also calling on the good, inherently human rights-loving people of Turkey to continue to set aside their fears – however justified – and mount a full-scale uprising against the Erdogan regime. Unmitigated justice and true democracy must ultimately prevail in Turkey," says Jewish Voice.
The newspaper notes that like other Middle Eastern leaders before him, Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has sadly not been able to leave well enough alone. For quite a while, his country was more in tune with Western values, allowing its citizenry to enjoy a decent amount of freedom as per democratic tenets and keeping the region’s prevailing spirit of hard-line Islamism within controlled boundaries of influence.
More recently, however, Erdogan has increasingly sought to institute reforms that clamp down on individual rights and impose various aspects of Sharia – read fundamentalist Muslim – law. His latest attempts to outlaw public consumption of alcohol during late evening hours, along with similar harsh measures, were apparently the straw that broke the camel’s (pardon the Middle East pun) back. Intense, boisterous riots ensued, with the common folk rising up to declare that they would not take these socially stifling measures lying down.
Unsurprisingly, the obstinate Prime Minister reacted in a manner of regressive defiance, directing Turkey’s riot police to unleash every weapon in their arsenal against the protestors. In addition to volleying rounds of rubber bullets and tear gas at the “had-it-up-to-here” citizens, the police arrested 70 lawyers who were marching in sympathy with the demonstrators. As the Wall Street Journal noted, this is all in sync with his troubling crackdowns of late. “The Prime Minister and his political allies have gone after media magnates, military officers, judges and journalists,” the respected newspaper stated, “many of whom are behind bars on trumped-up terrorism and conspiracy charges.”
Moreover, it has been reliably reported that – rather than take hard-earned taxpayer dollars and use them to build cultural institutions that broaden the people’s intellectual and artistic horizons – Erdogan has overseen the construction of approximately 1700 mosques throughout the country. It seems he is willing to do anything to defy the people’s wishes and shove as much hard-line Islamism down their throats as he possibly can.