Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 03:07 pm
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious person, like him or not. He is probably the most popular Turkish politician since Atatürk, and certainly seems to be the most controversial since then.
In terms of his policies, however, Erdogan’s reign has been problematic for several reasons:
- He has been in power first as Prime Minister and later as President for 14 years. That is a long time for many democracies!
- He jailed more journalists than leaders of China, Iran, and Egypt combined
- He either shut down or bought out [almost] every single independent news outlet
- He purged hundred of thousands of public servants due to ideological differences
- He jailed members of opposition parties in order to win elections
- He ordered the detention of thousands of civilians without any charges simply because they subscribe to a social movement
- He assisted ISIS!
- He fired and imprisoned thousands of policemen, intelligence officers, judges, and prosecutors in order to silence corruption and money-laundering allegations
- He covered up evidence of corruption in order to protect three of his ministers
- He ordered the imprisonment of pregnant women, disabled youth, and elderly WITHOUT any charges
- He comes from a humble background but his net worth is estimated to be in the ballpark of 3.5 billion USD
This is a list of things Erdogan has done over the years. Moral judgment is up to the readers!
