Turkey poised to replace emergency law with doppelganger
Call it what you will, Turkey's restrictive new "anti-terror package" looks suspiciously like the state of emergency the president imposed for the past two years.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has kept his vague election promise to end emergency law after two years, allowing it to expire July 18. Its replacement, however, appears to be as bad or worse.
The end of emergency law doesn't mean the end of restrictions on individual freedoms. Indeed, opposition figures said on social media that it's as if emergency law is now being extended for three more years. The reason for these concerns is a proposed bill, known as the “anti-terror package,” currently under review by parliament.
The anti-terror package, written by the newly minted ministers, arrived at parliament July 18. By July 20, it had cleared committee and is now being debated before parliament with a high probability to be passed as is.
This bill will make Erdogan’s dream of swift legislation and execution possible, ending any sort of deliberation and oversight. Mehmet Ucum, one of Erdogan's senior advisers, summed it up handily: “The [new] system doesn't allow quarrels. If there are disagreements about personal choices, the system permits those to be discarded as well, because there is only one decision-maker. Dissenters will be replaced in one night and in their place there will be people appointed who will do the job right.”
