Sometimes politics can look a lot like warfare, and in Turkey that is looking less like analogy and more like reality. An ex-prosecutor investigating a high-profile corruption scandal is claiming to have been threatened by envoys of the Prime Minister himself. The message, according to the Hurriyet Daily News? Drop the investigation, or risk harm.
The prosecutor’s response? I’d rather die.
Of course the Turkish Prime Minister, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, denied the claims. But that’s not all – the Hurriyet also reported that the government has damaged the careers of multiple police officials involved in the corruption investigation.
Implied is that the government is retaliating to crush the investigation.
This stands out because Turkey is a key ally of the West. If democracy is under fire, that’s going to hurt that relationship. Stay tuned.
(By Joshua Spurlock, January 8, 2014, themideastupdate.com)