I'm going to guess that he was a little too truthful in his reporting and the role that the Erdogan government had in the lax enforcement of building codes.

I work with a person from Turkey, and they mentioned that apparently their family in the country (who thankfully were safe) were completely unaware of the bribery that had led to the poor construction... Because the local news wasn't covering it.

dictators gonna dictate

Erdogan trying to keep the media giving a peachy outlook on him for that upcoming election..

I hope this shit finally puts an end to his reign..

The citizens of Turkey deserve so much better.

Turkish economy was already tanking. The government has been trying to prop up the numbers since 2015. We have over 100% inflation for two years running.

AKP (The ruling party) was trying to figure out if they could postpone the elections; now they've realized that they'll lose even more votes as they're no longer able to keep up lying about the economy with the earthquake and are trying to have the elections ASAP instead.

They just blocked eksisozluk, a Turkish forum website. They'll probably block all media and social media and try to hold the elections in a complete media blackout so people are as uninformed about what's going on as possible.

They closed universities so people affected by the earthquake can be housed in dormitories; as if that was the only option for housing. The real reason is guessed that the government doesn't want students socializing and talking about politics. They saw the power this has during the 2013 Gezi protests.

Sozcu, a Turkish newspaper that managed to remain not owned by the state is launching their TV station on March 1st. RTUK (Turkish Radio and Television High Authority) has been sending fines left and right to any station doing close to honest reporting on the current crisis. Likely Sozcu TV will be completely shut down as soon as it airs. God knows they've been blocking and stalling all the permits for years now.

Anyone in Turkey who speaks the truth right now is in the crossairs of the government. They want their lies retold, nothing more.

They also didn’t like people knowing how atrocious their relief efforts were. Victims going days without any aid is shameful. A complete logistical failure. My friend said he went to go help on the second day and many areas only had civilians trying to rescue, without even shovels or buckets because they expected that stuff would be available. People without tents for days, burning furniture for warmth. Wtf

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the country of Turkey, a stunning example of democratic backsliding in the face of populism.

Turkey hasn't has had a free press, let alone the ability for anyone to speak freely without repercussions, since Erdogan used "the coup" as an excuse to become Sultan of Turkanistan (which no doubt offends Turkmenistan's dictatorship).

This earthquake will be his "delay elections" card and he will further use it (like he uses the Turkish people and economy) to favor himself and his family's fortunes and further keep Russia's potential victims out of NATO.

> Erdogan trying to keep the media giving a peachy outlook on him for that upcoming election..

June, July, August. 2025? 2026?

Who is counting?

Protect yourself too dude.

Seriously.

AKP/Erdogan is as crazy as Russia (if not more so) when it comes to locking up dissidents.

Especially when Dear Leaders' life is literally on the line (the world should be so lucky).

Can always tell the signs of a wannabe dictator when they abuse their position and power to suppress those who so much as look at them the wrong way.

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Good luck trying to receive international aid.

They were testing the public opinion on delaying the elections right after the earthquake. A former government politician Bülent Arınç made a statement that even though the constitution doesn't allow for delaying the elections it should be considered. He even went so far as to say "What, is it written in the holy scriptures that elections can't be delayed?" for which people mocked him on social media because, you know, constitution>quran.

Anyway they quickly back pedaled on postponing elections now they see that as how much this earthquake is going to effect the country in the long term is becoming clear. Out of 14 million people that were affected by the destruction, more than 3 million have already relocated to other cities. Unemployment which was already significant is going to go through the roof. The government has spent all emergency funds that were supposed to be in place for such emergencies on useless constructions megaprojects to enrich their cronies.

Turkey had 40 billion USD of taxes collected for earthquake response, the fund is empty. There was 24 billion USD of mandatory unemployment insurance collected, was reallocated to the "Turkish Wealth Fund" which is directly under Erdogan's control and is exempt from state oversight, and spent. Central Bank of Turkey had 128 billion USD of emergency funds, was spent by Erdogan's son in law Berak Albayrak to try and keep the value of the Lira up (USDTRY went down from 2.80 to 18.87).

They've been selling assets of the country as fast as they can to get cash flow in. Since this is being done through the wealth fund it's not even possible to say just how much they've sold off so far. It wasn't enough so they started allowing "dirty" money to enter the country's banking system. Which is why Turkey has been put in the grey list.

Long story short, since around 2008 the government has no idea what they're doing, they keep trying to save the day, with no underlying plan for medium to long term strategy; and we're fucked.

Erdogan is directly responsible for all the death. His deliberate corruption has led the construction industry to build cheap and charge high, no standards no regulations.

Fuck this dictator and anyone like him on this planet!

Turkey (Erdogan) being Turkey (Erdogan).

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