[update below]
This is the title of a post on Paul Krugman’s NYT blog today, where he posts in turn an analysis by Harvard economist Dani Rodrik of the trumped-up Ergenekon/Sledgehammer affair in Turkey. Rodrik’s piece thus begins
In what is probably the country’s most important court case in at least five decades, hundreds of Turkish military officers are in jail and on trial for allegedly having plotted to overthrow the then newly-elected Justice and Development Party back in 2003. The case also happens to be one of the most absurd ever prosecuted in an apparent democracy. The evidence against the defendants is such an obvious forgery that even a child would recognize it as such. Imagine, if you can, something that is a cross between the Moscow show trials and the Salem witchcraft hysteria, and you will not be too far off.
I’ve posted a few items on this affair, notably here. On the subject, Dexter Filkins has a good article in the current issue of The New Yorker on Turkey and “the deep state,” plus a shorter item on “Turkey’s jailed journalists.”
UPDATE: Istanbul-based writer Suzy Hansen writes in TNR on how “the assault on Turkish journalists continues.” (March 15)
(image credit: Newsetc)
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