| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Turkey: Erdogan sez to opponents "Accept Gul or leave the country" |
| 2007-08-28 |
| EFL Abdullah Gül is expected to be elected Turkey's next president on Tuesday. But calls by Prime Minister Erdogan for Gül's critics to give up their citizenship have the media wondering what direction Turkey will take. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under sharp criticism for calling on Turks who refuse to accept former Islamist Abdullah Gül's presidency to leave the country. Gül, who is currently Turkey's foreign minister, failed in an attempt to win the presidency earlier this year. He is almost certain to be elected as head of state on Tuesday. "Those (Turks) who do not recognize Abdullah Gül as their president should give up their Turkish citizenship," Erdogan said in an interview with television station Kanal D. Erdogan was commenting on an article by the prominent columnist Bekir Coskun from Turkey's largest daily Hürriyet. Coskun had written that Gül's presidency would mean the end of the secular state in Turkey -- a fear shared by the country's secular elite. "Gül will not be my president," Coskun wrote last week. Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) nominated Gül for the presidency. Government terror? After the AKP victory in general elections on July 22, Erdogan had promised to be "everyone's prime minister." Many observers had hoped he would embrace the highly polarized society as a whole. Yet according to Yüksel Isik from the Progressive Journalists Association, the prime minister's statement showed that press freedom was still a major challenge in Turkey. "The prime minister is taking an exclusionary stance against a prominent journalist, Bekir Coskun, as if he is 'the other'," Isik said. "If local governors follow the prime minister's behavior and try to pressure journalists in local regions, this would mean the total terrorization of Turkey by this government." In a separate move, the mass circulation Hürriyet fired columnist Emin Cölasan last week, who is known for his highly critical articles on the AKP-led government. According to Isik, these events showed that the problem of press freedom was more serious than it appeared. "Many of our journalist colleagues have been fired without any just cause, only for their criticism of governmental policies," Isik said. |
| Posted by:mrp |