OPTIMISTS might have hoped that after his Justice and Development (AK) party scored a stunning victory in the election on November 1st with 49% of the vote, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, would turn over a new leaf. True, the election took place only because AK refused to accept losing its majority in the previous poll in June. Worse, the religious-nationalist party’s campaign strategy involved cracking down on independent media and waging war on Kurdish militants, all in order to inflame Turkish chauvinism. AK could have dropped those tactics after the election, using its political capital to restart the peace process with the Kurds and leaving the liberal opposition to grumble impotently in defeat.
Instead the government is moving in the opposite direction. The day after the ballot, authorities raided the leftist magazine Nokta, confiscated the latest issue and arrested two editors, charging them with incitement to violence. Dozens of employees at television stations and newspapers owned by the Koza Ipek holding company have been dismissed over the past week….