\u201cWhere shall I begin? -Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end\u201d.<\/p>\n
So goes the line from Lewis Carroll\u2019s \u201cAlice in Wonderland.<\/p>\n
These days, recounting real life stories about Turkey is increasingly resembling the world of chaos and nonsense created by a mysterious and dark Victorian writer.<\/p>\n
Just when you think it cannot get any stranger, more and more curious things happen.<\/p>\n
Six months after a violent coup attempt and under a brutal state of emergency, a constitutional overhaul giving expanded presidential authority to the already all-powerful President, was rushed through the parliament.<\/p>\n
Between approval by the governing party\u2019s deputies (plus their newly-found ultra-nationalist allies in parliament) and until its signing-off by the President last week, another purge has taken place. 4,464 public workers were dismissed<\/a>, among them 330 academics, from Turkey\u2019s oldest and best known universities.<\/p>\n The date of a national referendum on constitutional changes was announced as April 16, on Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n Voters will have two choices on the ballot paper; white representing yes and brown representing no to changes.<\/p>\n Even though the run-up to Turkey’s referendum fully resembles an election campaign, with President Erdogan and members of the government already campaigning for a \u201cYes\u201d vote, national legal frameworks that normally regulate elections are missing.<\/p>\n For the government\u2019s opponents, having any kind of space in the public debate is a major struggle.<\/p>\n If anything, violations of the right to freedom of opinion and expression have become much more widespread.<\/p>\n Naysayers<\/a> are harassed, threatened or arbitrarily detained.<\/p>\n A well-known television presenter was sacked<\/a> for showing his colour as \u201cbrown\u201d in his tweets.<\/p>\n Turkey has obligations under international human rights law to guarantee free and fair exercise of people\u2019s civil and political rights.<\/p>\n Among them lies ensuring<\/a> \u201ca free press and other media to facilitate debate on public issues without censorship or restraint, in particular in the context of elections. The public also has a corresponding right to access information freely.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the state of emergency, there is not even a pretense of providing unimpeded access to the media on a non-discriminatory basis for all political groupings.<\/p>\n A decree, published in the Official Gazette on February 9, removed the obligation from private channels to allocate airtime to all political parties in accordance with The Supreme Election Board\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n The main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) leader, Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu,\u00a0 said<\/a> that \u201cthere was only freedom to say \u2018yes\u2019 during the referendum campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n The government is not only taking unfair advantage of its political and economic power to restrict public debate, but it is also intimidating voices of dissent.<\/p>\n