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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a speech before his parliamentary group on December 23. HANDOUT / AFP
Again the alarms are sounding about another setback, one more, of public freedoms in Turkey.
This time due to a law that interferes in the activities of NGOs, to the point of providing for the replacement of their leaders, the auditing of accounts or even the cancellation of their activities, with the hypocritical excuse of bringing Turkish legislation into line with international standards against terrorism or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The Council of Europe has expressed its concern about this initiative that aims to control and even end Turkish civil society associations that are dedicated to monitoring and promoting human rights and helping detainees and victims of human rights abuses. The authorities.
This legislation, approved by the majority Islamist Parliament, adds to the growing limitations on freedom of expression, political pluralism and the independence of judges that have characterized Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime since the failed coup in July 2016 .
The same authoritarian hardening is being experienced by countries such as Russia, China or India, where the control of NGOs constitutes a fundamental link in hiding the growing violations of human rights.
Erdogan's case is especially worrying, since this country, under his leadership, has remained on paper and then has been failing to fulfill its commitments as a signatory to European and international human rights conventions.
The latest non-compliance has been the refusal to obey the order for the immediate release of Selahattin Demirtas issued by the European Court of Human Rights.
Demirtas has been in preventive detention for four years awaiting a trial in which he is asked for 142 years in prison for terrorism as the leader of a until now legal organization, the Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP), which It has thousands of its militants and former deputies in prisons and now risks being outlawed with the law against NGOs.
