Newswise — “The systematic crack down on freedom of speech and press that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has waged in Turkey is reaching new heights,” said Ankara native Evren Celik Wiltse, a political science assistant profess at South Dakota State University. Not only has Erdogan initiated a lawsuit against a German comedian for reading a satirical poem with rather explicit and tasteless language, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to have given a green light to the proceedings in Germany.
Caught up in the urgency of the Syrian refugee crisis, the European Union, in general, and Germany, in particular, seem to have conceded to short-term, band-aid solutions, she noted. Consequently, they struck a deal which offered monetary compensation to Turkey in exchange for tightening border controls, accepting the rejected refugees from the EU and keeping them inside Turkey. “They are turning a blind eye to Turkey’s blatant rights abuses in exchange for a temporary holding pen for refugees,” said Celik Wiltse, who earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Bogazici University in Istanbul and her doctorate degree from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
She can be reached 605-688-4311 or [email protected]. You can follow her on Twitter at @EvrenWiltse.
Her latest book, “Democratic Reform and Consolidation: the cases of Mexico and Turkey,” was released in 2015 by Colchester: ECPR Press.
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