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Turkey ‘on the road to autocracy,’ Venice Commission watchdog says

March 1, 2017 By administrator

A body of constitutional law experts has warned of a “one-person regime” in Turkey, a German paper has reported. Proposed constitutional amendments seek to establish an executive-style presidential system.

The Venice Commission, an advisory body of constitutional law experts, has described a “dramatic decline in democratic order” in Turkey, the German newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported on Wednesday.

The Commission, which advises the Council of Europe, one of the continent’s human rights bodies separate from the European Union, reported that the proposed changes to the constitution in Turkey place the country “on the road to an autocracy and a one-person regime,” according to the newspaper.

In January, Turkey’s parliament approved a series of constitutional amendments approved by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that would transform the political order into an executive-style presidential system, effectively widening the scope of powers of the position.

The parliament’s approval paves the way for a nationwide referendum on the amendments, which would give the president, a traditionally more ceremonial role, the power to dismiss ministers and parliament, issues decrees, declare emergency rule and appoint figures to key positions, including the judiciary.

It would also allow the president to be a member of a political party, which is currently prohibited under the constitution as the presidency is expected to exercise impartiality.

Opposition parties have voiced concern that centralizing power in the presidency will fuel authoritarianism in the country.

“The state will be degraded to a one political party and that political party will be turned into the state’s party. That is dangerous,” said Turkish ex-Foreign Minister Deniz Baykal of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Worst crisis in a generation’

The Venice Commission criticized Ankara’s decision to push through constitutional changes during a state of emergency, saying the “severe restrictions” of political freedoms jeopardize the necessary framework for such pivotal modifications to the law.

A failed coup in July 2016 prompted Turkish authorities to declare a state of emergency, which has witnessed a crackdown on freedoms of expression, association and assembly.

Turkey has come under heavy criticism in Germany after the arrest of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel. He is pending trial on charges of supporting a terrorist organization.

More than 43,000 soldiers, police officers, judges and teachers have been arrested for suspected involvement in the failed coup.

“With hundreds of thousands of people dismissed or detained without due process, an independent media silenced and Kurdish opposition members of parliament in jail, Turkey has been plunged into its worst crisis in a generation,” said Hugh Williamson, Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia director, in January.

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/turkey-on-the-road-to-autocracy-venice-commission-watchdog-says/a-37756991

ls/sms (SZ, dpa, epd)

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: autocracy, Erdogan, Venice Commission

Let’s be realistic about Iraqi Kurdistan; it’s a deeply unpleasant autocracy

July 28, 2015 By administrator

By Alastair Sloan | The Middle East Monitor

450x360xIraqi-Kurdistan-president-Massoud-Barzani-photo-reuters.jpg.pagespeed.ic.FsS8mFkQVCIn May last year, who in the West had heard of the “Peshmerga”? Wasn’t that a kind of scarf? No, the BBC, CNN and Sky News told us, these were warriors for freedom, brave Kurds, rallying against the ISIS threat when the Iraqi army had fled in disarray. Even Marie Claire, the woman’s lifestyle magazine, did a piece on them, highlighting with some justification the role that female fighters play in their ranks.

What’s more, the Peshmerga weren’t scary Arabs, which meant we could send them guns. And boy did we send them guns. The United States air-dropped Russian-made weapons almost immediately, although where they had bought them remains unclear. Then Washington agreed to send, via Baghdad, fifteen thousand hand grenades, eighteen thousand assault rifles, forty-five thousand mortar rounds, forty thousand RPG rounds and nearly three thousand RPG launchers.

Germany, in a rare example of the government exporting weapons to a live conflict zone, armed four thousand Kurds with equal alacrity, sending troop transport vehicles, Milan anti-tank rocket launchers, armour-piercing bazookas, heavy machine guns, sixteen thousand rifles, eight thousand pistols and six million rounds of ammunition.

Despite its slashed defence budget, even Britain joined in, gifting half a million more bullets, forty heavy machine guns and an unspecified number of mortars and sets of body-armour. While a British presence in Iraq is almost comically small (“David Cameron is not in Iraq”), the British Army has deployed its considerable expertise in training Peshmerga forces on how to avoid and defuse mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). We have also supplied fifty tonnes of non-lethal and medical equipment, according to the Ministry of Defence; meanwhile, RAF pilots have helped to deliver a further “three hundred tonnes” on behalf of other nations.

This, apparently, is still not enough. “Ninety per cent of the burden of this war is on the shoulders of the Peshmerga,” claimed Masrour Barzani, the chief of the Kurdish intelligence corps, “and ninety per cent of the work is done by the Peshmerga, but we are only getting ten per cent of the weapons.” Barzani’s brothers are both leading Kurdish generals. His father, Masud, is President of Kurdistan.

Now, let’s be clear, the Peshmerga are certainly brave and they are certainly holding back ISIS, but their rulers, the Barzani clan, are dictators and gangsters. Masud Barzani isn’t meant to be president; there is a strict two term limit on the post, which he’s just ignored. When a Kurdish poet wrote a satirical piece recently poking fun at the Barzani family, he was arrested and executed. If Kurdish businessmen don’t pay the right bribes to the Barzanis, they too face arrest. Numerous journalists writing critically about the clan have simply disappeared.

“You son of a dog, if you publish that magazine tomorrow, I’ll entomb your head in your dog father’s grave,” one newspaper editor was told. Eighteen months later, he was shot dead outside his home. When Arab Spring-inspired street marches hit Kurdistan in 2011, there were over three hundred and fifty attacks on journalists by the Barzanis’ thugs. There have been hundreds more since then.

The Barzanis also appear to be overseeing a campaign of ethnic cleansing, both directly in Iraqi Kurdistan and via their affiliated fighters in Syria. They deny these charges, but diplomats and several aid workers attest to seeing Sunni Arabs driven from their homes in their thousands, their former dwellings burned to the ground. Many of the displaced Sunnis have lived there for decades, having been encouraged to move there by Saddam Hussein.

Looting, arson and forcible removal hardly seems a recipe for ongoing stability, and with the West simply standing by, often the only place for the Sunni Arabs to go is into ISIS-controlled territory.

You will see or hear almost none of this in the Western media. CNN, Bloomberg and other major outlets have all interviewed Masrour Barzani, giving him a platform to call for yet more weapons to strengthen his nascent mafia state. The Kurds remain lionised in the media to the extent that former soldiers and Western adventurers have been inspired to fight alongside them. In reality, there are no good guys in this fight.

So while the Western arms continue to pour in for the Barzani clan and their troops, are we helping “degrade and destroy” ISIS, or simply propping up another local dictatorship? The Iraqi Kurds certainly haven’t shown any desire to attack ISIS beyond their own borders. Hats off to the Peshmerga for the work they’ve done, but let’s be realistic about what Kurdistan is; a deeply unpleasant autocracy run by mafia bosses who kill, imprison or displace anyone who gets in their way.

 

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: autocracy, Barzani, Kurd

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