Erdoğan takes Turkey back to Old Testament times.
There was a time when he was elected Prime Minister of Turkey in 2003 when it was possible to see the country's current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AK Party as a moderate, modernising force which could lead Turkey in the direction of being a successful and normal 21st century society.
It's no coincidence that it was at that stage of his leadership of Turkey that British statesmen who were subsequently to end up on both sides of the Brexit debate - including both David Cameron and Boris Johnson - thought that it was reasonable to hope that Turkey might join the EU. one of thye most damaging aspects of the EU referendum campaign was that comments on this subject which had been made in the first decade of the 21st century while Turkey was on the road to reform were repeated out of context in the following decade by which time the government of Turkey had completely reversed direction.
Turkey is one of very few majority Islamic states - the most other obvious example is Bangladesh - which had evolved their own version of the separation of church and state. Which makes what has happened in the country in the last couple of years of Erdoğan's premiership and during his presidency all the more tragic.
In the early part of his premiership Erdoğan made attempts, some more serious than others but attempts nevertheless, to reconcile Turks and Muslims with Kurds, Greece, Israel and Armenia and with Jews and Christians. He almost doubled the number of universities in Turkey, encouraged people of both sexes to go to them, and launched a campaign called "Come on girls, let's go to school!" (in Turkish, "Haydi Kızlar Okula!"). The goal of this campaign was to close the gender-gap in primary school enrollment through the provision of a quality basic education for all girls, especially in southeast Turkey.
Sadly in the last few years much of this reform agenda has gone into reverse, with anyone who criticises Erdoğan's government liable to be sacked, prosecuted, or both. In 2017 it was suggested that Turkey appears to have imprisoned more journalists than any other country in the world and more than North Korea, Russia, Cuba and China put together. A 2017 law effectively makes it illegal for the Turkish parliament to investigate the executive branch of government.
It is perhaps in the treatment of women that the promise of Erdoğan's early years has most disappointingly been not just abandoned but put backwards. Turkey used to have a reputation as one of the most positive countries in the middle east on the subject of women's rights: I referred above to the campaign to get girls to school.In 2004 as PM Erdoğan and the AK Party doubled the sentence for child abusers and removed the law giving men convicted of statutory rape more lenient treatment if they marry their victim which they now propose to bring back.
The idea that victims of rape or child abuse might be helped by having to marry their rapist originates in Old Testament times, and that is where it belongs. If there had been any doubt President Erdoğan and the AK Party are dragging Turkey backwards into the past, the news they are bringing forward a bill to release men who have been sentenced for committing statutory rape on condition they marry their victim must remove it.
It's no coincidence that it was at that stage of his leadership of Turkey that British statesmen who were subsequently to end up on both sides of the Brexit debate - including both David Cameron and Boris Johnson - thought that it was reasonable to hope that Turkey might join the EU. one of thye most damaging aspects of the EU referendum campaign was that comments on this subject which had been made in the first decade of the 21st century while Turkey was on the road to reform were repeated out of context in the following decade by which time the government of Turkey had completely reversed direction.
Turkey is one of very few majority Islamic states - the most other obvious example is Bangladesh - which had evolved their own version of the separation of church and state. Which makes what has happened in the country in the last couple of years of Erdoğan's premiership and during his presidency all the more tragic.
In the early part of his premiership Erdoğan made attempts, some more serious than others but attempts nevertheless, to reconcile Turks and Muslims with Kurds, Greece, Israel and Armenia and with Jews and Christians. He almost doubled the number of universities in Turkey, encouraged people of both sexes to go to them, and launched a campaign called "Come on girls, let's go to school!" (in Turkish, "Haydi Kızlar Okula!"). The goal of this campaign was to close the gender-gap in primary school enrollment through the provision of a quality basic education for all girls, especially in southeast Turkey.
Sadly in the last few years much of this reform agenda has gone into reverse, with anyone who criticises Erdoğan's government liable to be sacked, prosecuted, or both. In 2017 it was suggested that Turkey appears to have imprisoned more journalists than any other country in the world and more than North Korea, Russia, Cuba and China put together. A 2017 law effectively makes it illegal for the Turkish parliament to investigate the executive branch of government.
It is perhaps in the treatment of women that the promise of Erdoğan's early years has most disappointingly been not just abandoned but put backwards. Turkey used to have a reputation as one of the most positive countries in the middle east on the subject of women's rights: I referred above to the campaign to get girls to school.In 2004 as PM Erdoğan and the AK Party doubled the sentence for child abusers and removed the law giving men convicted of statutory rape more lenient treatment if they marry their victim which they now propose to bring back.
The idea that victims of rape or child abuse might be helped by having to marry their rapist originates in Old Testament times, and that is where it belongs. If there had been any doubt President Erdoğan and the AK Party are dragging Turkey backwards into the past, the news they are bringing forward a bill to release men who have been sentenced for committing statutory rape on condition they marry their victim must remove it.
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