after Istanbul mayor imamoglu was convicted and sentenced to jail time the U.S, state department has released a statement through spokesperson vedant patel against turkey and its recent actions stating “This unjust sentence is inconsistent with respect for human rights, with respect to fundamental freedoms and rule of law we remain gravely concerned by the continued indictment of civil society, media, political and business leaders in Turkey and their prolonged pretrial detention.“. these charges come as erdogan (turkey’s president) is expected to lose reelection against imamoglu and has actually led to protest from the turkish people demanding the release of imamoglu while the prosecution seeks a longer sentence.
Turkey’s judicial system is pretty obviously in the pocket of the president as imamoglu comments could hardly even be called an insult and certainly aren’t deserving of 2 years in prison. this is also quite blatantly a move for erdogan’s (turkey’s president) to get elected a firstly imamoglu would be barred from running if he goes to jail and and secondly he is predicted to beat Wrdogan if he did run so putting him in prison would quite and easy fix to the presidents problem. The downside to this is that everyone can see this for what it is and the protest is only going to continue to get bigger since it’s so obviously in the right. I predict imamoglu will go free likely after he releases an apology or statement because unless the Turkish government is so incredibly asinine to throw a politician in jail for calling another official a fool then they’ll likely release him. and its lowering turkeys government in the eyes of more democratic countries.
this relates back to class in part i feel to the discussion about how states with like minded ways of running their political system are likely to work together. but the interesting thing here is the turkey is starting to seem like a democracy in name only and while they may be able to hide small acts of censure this is one of the most blatant corrupt acts i’ve ever read about and it’s almost comical in its boldness. ANd with turkeys giant protests against the government and it’s judicial system obviously in league with erdogan the public perception of turkey’s ¨president¨ will only get worse.