Yes, Turkey currently has over 100 journalists in prison. But half of them are there under the laws against Kurdish terrorism, of which they might very well be guilty; never forget that the "dissidents" in any given country, however genuinely unpleasant its government, have very often committed acts that would be illegal in any jurisdiction on earth.
As for the other half, they are there under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. That makes it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions. But it was enacted by the present government as a toning down, in pursuit of EU membership, of the far more severe previous law imposed by the secular ultra-nationalists, whose terrorist-linked Deep State lawyers have brought almost, if almost, every case under Article 301.
Those are the people on the streets against the Islamist backers of our own favoured side in Syria: secular ultra-nationalists linked to terrorist organisations and with them comprising the Deep State; rejoicers in the bloody mass expulsion of the ancient indigenous Christians, Greek and Armenian, at and as the foundation of the Republic of Turkey; deniers of the Armenian Genocide, and merciless persecutors of those who dare to mention it.
That? Or the Islamists? Take your pick. Or, rather preferably, stay out of it. All the while remembering that both sides are fanatically committed both to the European federalist project and to the Atlantic Alliance. Telling us a huge amount about each and all of Kemalism, Turkish Islamism, the EU and NATO.
It is also worth noting that those who retain the original indivisibility of secular liberalism and modern nationalism, each necessarily as extreme as the other in any given circumstance, define themselves by the enormous pleasure that they take in the bloody mass expulsion of Christians, by their denial that genocides of Christians ever happened, by their merciless persecution of anyone who says otherwise, and by their organisation of themselves in, through and as terrorist organisations and Deep State networks. By no means only in Turkey.
It is also worth noting that those who retain the original indivisibility of secular liberalism and modern nationalism, each necessarily as extreme as the other in any given circumstance, define themselves by the enormous pleasure that they take in the bloody mass expulsion of Christians, by their denial that genocides of Christians ever happened, by their merciless persecution of anyone who says otherwise, and by their organisation of themselves in, through and as terrorist organisations and Deep State networks. By no means only in Turkey.
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