BREAKING: NATO Member Turkey Descends into Autocracy as Kurdish Lawmakers Arrested, Internet Apps Blocked

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once identified by President Obama as one of his top five closest international leader friends, famously said: “Democracy is a like a train: you get off once you’ve reached your destination.”

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Grave reports are emerging from NATO member Turkey tonight that Erdogan is getting the country off the democracy train. Kurdish lawmakers have been arrested and Internet social media applications are being blocked by the Turkish government, in an escalating crackdown that Erdogan has waged since a botched coup attempt this past July.

Reuters reports:

Turkey detained two co-leaders and nine other lawmakers of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) early on Friday over reluctance to give testimony for crimes linked to “terrorist propaganda.”

The Turkish Interior Ministry said detention orders for 13 MPs were issued, but only 11 were detained as two lawmakers were abroad. Lawyers had earlier said 15 MPs were detained.

Turkish police raided the Ankara house of co-leader Selahattin Demirtas and the house of co-leader Figen Yuksekdag in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, the party’s lawyers told Reuters.

“HDP call international community to react against Erdogan Regime’s coup,” the party said on Twitter, referring to President Tayyip Erdogan.

Police also raided and searched the party’s head office in central Ankara. Television images showed party officials quarreling with police during the raid, and a Reuters witness said many police cars and armed vehicles had closed the entrances to the street of the HDP headquarters […]

HDP is the third largest party in the 550-seat Turkish parliament, with 59 seats. Parliamentarians in Turkey normally enjoy immunity from prosecution, but the pro-Kurdish party’s immunity was lifted earlier this year.

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Arrests have been widespread since the July attempted coup, with the Erdogan regime imprisoning opponents, banning rallies, taking over media outlets, and sacking non-Islamist government employees by the thousands.

Just a few days ago, the State Department ordered families and dependents to leave the country.

The ostensible reason was increased fears of possible terrorism, but Erdogan has been ramping up the crackdown over the past week.

The Obama administration has been noticeably quiet about the escalating crackdown in Turkey, which hasn’t gone unnoticed:

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The situation with our NATO ally is complicated even further with U.S. special forces embedded with Turkish troops operating in northern Syria.

But Turkey has also been attacking Syrian Democratic Forces that also have embedded U.S. special forces.

Oh, and the U.S. has 60-70 nuclear weapons stationed at the NATO Incirlik air base in southern Turkey.

Earlier today Robert Jones reported here at PJ Media about the rapid increase in the murder of women as Turkey has Islamicized under Erdogan.

And just last week, the Erdogan regime made the highly provocative move to appoint an imam for the occupied church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which had been de-Islamicized and turned into a museum under the reign of Ataturk nearly one hundred years ago.

We will continue  to monitor the situation in Turkey and bring our readers updates as they happen.

 

 

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