For me, it basically amounts to shooting the messenger if one does not like the message he brings.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Though not comparable in quantum, both the governments in Cairo and Ankara are trying their best to control and suppress their respective oppositions. An Egyptian court sentencing 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death within two hearings of a sham trial is a joke. Sure, Egyptians were fed up with the Muslim Brotherhood government’s unilateralism and its tendency to ride over the country’s constitution and civil society, but that does not justify a takeover by a government, which is essentially a military dictatorship.
Not far away from Egypt, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan’s government is bent upon suppressing the voice of defiance as last week it went ahead with the blocking of social media website Twitter and now has blocked video-sharing website YouTube. Instead of clarifying his position in alleged corruption cases, Erdogan found it more appropriate to ban the websites posting material that he found to be embarrassing.
Someone termed the ban on Twitter akin to “burning books”; for me, it basically amounts to shooting the messenger if one does not like the message he brings. Erdogan has declared that Turkey is not a banana republic. I wonder what else could be the definition of a banana republic.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, March 29th, 2014.
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