In a signal that Turkey faces indefinite rule by decree, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday that a state of emergency, introduced as a temporary measure after last year’s failed coup, would continue until the country achieved “welfare and peace.”
The state of emergency allows Mr. Erdogan and his cabinet to issue sweeping decrees without parliamentary oversight or review by the constitutional court, giving him an almost untrammeled grip on power.
.. So far, the decrees have allowed Mr. Erdogan to
- jail more than 40,000 people accused of plotting a failed coup,
- fire or suspend more than 140,000 additional people,
- shut down about 1,500 civil groups,
- arrest at least 120 journalists and
- close more than 150 news media outlets.
.. In late April, a decree issued under the state of emergency was used to block access to Wikipedia.
.. What we’ve seen is that instead of using the state of emergency to counter genuine threats to national security, it’s been abused to stifle criticism of the ruling AK party,”
l Plenty of tough talk for Erdogan guards, but action is unlikely, experts say
police handled the disturbance smartly by separating the antagonists and leaving it to others to sort out culpability and criminality. He said even if the officers didn’t immediately grasp that the guards were potentially immune from arrest, they would have known that a fight outside an ambassador’s residence was more complex than a simple dispute.
“The officers in D.C. are well trained,” Ramsey said. “They are very familiar with these unique kind of circumstances. This is not your typical city.”
.. “Diplomatic immunity can’t be a license to attack people at will. The cops see people beating others into submission, and I think they’re convinced it was above their pay grade to act.”
.. Turkey’s semiofficial news agency cast the melee as a failure of D.C. police, saying they did not stop the anti-Erdogan protest. The government later alleged that its guards had “responded in self-defense” to terrorists it said had joined the protesters.
Embassy Statement Regarding The Incidents That Occurred In Sheridan Circle On May 16, 2017
Groups affiliated with the PKK, which the U.S. and Turkey have designated as a terrorist organization, gathered yesterday without permit in Sheridan Circle in the immediate vicinity of the Ambassador’s Residence, while the President of Turkey was visiting the Residence. The demonstrators began aggressively provoking Turkish-American citizens who had peacefully assembled to greet the President. The Turkish-Americans responded in self-defense and one of them was seriously injured. The violence and injuries were the result of this unpermitted, provocative demonstration. We hope that, in the future, appropriate measures will be taken to ensure that similar provocative actions causing harm and violence do not occur.
Why Michael Flynn will keep haunting the Trump administration
But perhaps the most damning of all of Flynn’s troubles — and the one that could keep haunting the Trump administration — is something that has little to do with Russia: Flynn was working for the Turkish government while working for Trump, which means that he was advocating for policies that benefited Turkey while serving as Trump’s national security adviser. And Trump may have known about this.
.. Taken together, they’re damning because what Flynn did gets at the heart of being a democracy: He was on the payroll of a foreign government while in a powerful position in the U.S. government.
Lobbying for a foreign government while simultaneously working for the U.S. government crosses just about every ethical red line you can think of, experts say.
.. ““Can you imagine a U.S. senator saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m a U.S. senator and, at the same time, I’m lobbying on behalf of Mexico’?””
.. What Trump knew about Flynn’s dual roles will probably be of keen interest to the special counsel the Justice Department appointed Wednesday to lead the Russia investigation. Did Trump know Flynn was also working for a foreign government? And if so, what does that say about the administration’s intentions toward other governments, including Russia’s?