In troubled times, when pragmatism almost always overrides idealistic concerns, Turkey\u2019s rulers may believe that they are beyond reproach; their cooperation far too valuable to be jeopardized.<\/p>\n
First, the key role assigned to Turkey in dealing with Europe\u2019s refugee crisis and now, the fragility of the latest diplomatic push to end the conflict in Syria have evidently further emboldened Turkey to violate the fundamental rights of its citizens with impunity.<\/p>\n
As John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International\u2019s Europe and Central Asia Program Director put it in an interview<\/a> to NRT, the Turkish government has been incredibly successful in leveraging its importance to the wider world to subdue criticism.<\/p>\n Speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos on Thursday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told his high-profile audience that \u201cTurkey was an island of stability, surrounded by several fragile states in a troublesome region,\u201d and it has a strong self-confidence because it has \u2018a stable political framework\u2019.<\/p>\n After at least four terrorist attacks on its soil in less than a year, with three million refugees to house and a raging hot conflict inside its own borders, does Turkey really project an image of stability?<\/p>\n In Davos, Mr. Davutoglu also claimed that the media was free. There was no pressure or limitations on freedoms. Nobody was arrested because of their media activities.<\/p>\n Yet, this was the week when the ninth anniversary of the assassination of the Turkish -Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was commemorated with his murder still unsolved. The IMC TV reporter and cameraman Refik Tekin<\/a> was shot and injured by security forces while filming, surrounded by other civilians in Cizre. At the Parliament, Utku Cakirozer, an opposition deputy \u00a0declared<\/a> that the threat of physical violence is the greatest danger to media workers in Turkey. He gave concrete examples of intimidation and abuse. The European Court of Human Rights once again ruled<\/a> against Turkey for violating Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Filiz Kerestecioglu, another opposition deputy told the Parliament this week that the President has sued more than 1500 people for insulting him since he has taken the post a year and half ago. Instructed by the President himself, prosecutors have launched investigations against more than 1200 Turkish academics who signed a petition calling for an end to military and police operations in the south-east. Some of the signatories have already been sacked; others had crosses painted on their doors.<\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s Prime Minister may see these as elements of a \u2018stable political framework\u2019, but even among the most pragmatic, they are perceived as signs of Turkey\u2019s further drift to authoritarianism, undermining the long-term stability of the country.<\/p>\n