Unacceptable decisions in Turkey

Demonstration in Istanbul against Turkey's departure from the European Convention against Sexual Violence.ERDEM SAHIN / EFE

• Erdogan withdraws Turkey from the European convention against sexist violence

Two decisions - taken with little margin between them and which seriously harm human rights and democracy - show the acceleration of the authoritarian drift in Turkey headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as the scant sincerity of the reforms that he claimed to want to undertake. Government in recent months.

The removal of the central bank governor, on the other hand, confirms a despotic way of exercising power: Erdogan did not like that he raised interest rates, and he replaced him.

The first is the announcement of Turkey's withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention for the prevention of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, signed in 2011, ironically in Istanbul itself and whose first signatory was precisely Turkey with Erdogan as the first Minister.

It is a blow against a historic agreement that forced legal measures against a scourge that only so far in 2021 has officially cost the lives of 78 women in the Ottoman country.

It is an unjustifiable endorsement of ultra-conservative Islamist approaches that falsely argue that the Convention attacks a traditional family model.

Finally, it gives wings to other illiberal governments to follow the same path and leave a legal milestone in the fight against sexist violence on paper.

The second decision is the request of the Prosecutor's Office to outlaw the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and expel several members of this pro-Kurdish formation from Parliament.

This measure is only the latest in a long list of repressive actions against the main Kurdish formation in the country;

In recent years, thousands of its members have been imprisoned and the majority of mayors elected in the municipal elections of 2019 have been deposed by order of the Ministry of the Interior just a few months after taking office.

And despite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights demanding his release, a former party leader remains in prison.

Unfortunately, the perspective of the two cases is only one: more victims and less democracy.