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#12DaysofChristmas: Europe turned blind eye to violations of human rights in Turkey

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turkey-eu2016 was a disastrous year for democracy in Turkey. President Erdoğan's assault on free speech accelerated following the July coup attempt (15 July), with the arrest of more than 140 journalists. The ongoing purge is not limited to journalists and includes judges, academics, teachers, business owners and civil servants.

EU-Turkey Action Plan

On 18 March the European Council reached an agreement on the EU Turkey Action Plan on irregular migration. The agreement had a major impact on the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe and resulted in a massive reduction in drownings in the Aegean. In exchange the EU agreed to re-energize the accession process and held out the hope for visa liberalization for Turkish nationals.

The EU-Turkey plan came hot on the heels of the controversial seizure of the Zaman newspaper and website only days before (4 March), heads of government could not pretend that they were ignorant of the deteriorating human rights situation in Turkey. Zaman had been critical of the President and had investigated corruption involving  Erdoğan's family.

We spoke to the former-editor of the English-language edition of the paper Today’s Zaman, Sevgi Akarcesme, on 15 March. Though critical of the regime, Akarcesme was also very critical of the coup attempt in July.

The website TurkeyPurge.com, which is monitoring the situation in Turkey since the coup, has recorded more than 80,000 detainees. The figures below show some of the headline statistics from the purge.

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161227turkeyfigures

The Commission and Council seems determined to maintain the EU-Turkey deal, the European Parliament has become more outspoken in their opposition to visa liberalization while the rule of law is being flouted, in particular, they would like to see the draconian and wide-ranging anti-terrorism rules modified so that they allow freedom of speech and opposition.

Over the twelve days of Christmas, we are highlighting 12 videos from the past 12 months.

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