Excerpt:
A number of American-Islamists are hailing Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s election Monday to a new five-year term as a win for democracy.
In truth, an autocratic leader put the inherent advantages of incumbency on steroids, dominating media coverage, keeping opponents in jail and generating what Amnesty International describes as a “climate of fear.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists named Erdogan’s Turkey “the worst jailer of journalists in 2017.” An estimated 120 journalists have been imprisoned on terrorism charges since a failed coup in 2016. Even Amnesty International’s Turkey director Taner Kılıç has spent the past year behind bars. Dozens more news outlets have been shut down or taken over by elements sympathetic to the government.
But American Islamists, who eagerly express concern for civil rights in the United States, saw only cause for celebration in Turkey.